WP09. Dissemination & Exploitation

General Objectives:

  • Clearly define the tasks related to the Dissemination activities
  • Structure these within the Consortium, including release of new high-level data to ESA archives

Participants:

CSIC, OU, IASB, CNRS, INAF, ORB, UCM

Scientific Impacts:

The ambitius science of UPWARDS, will result in a substantial quantity of two types of data products, both of large interest for further scientific studies and futture applications:

  1. Level-2 data. Obtained by the UPWARDS new retrieval processes directly from the calibrated radiances of Mars Express instruments and other missions' measurements, and therefore given at the precise geo-location where the data was acquired.
  2. Level-3 and Higher level. Obtained from the Level-2 data produced within UPWARDS and/or other higher data available to the Consortium but projected into in a regular user-friendly grid or map.

These data can be subdivided into three categories:

a) Level-3 data; a binning process of the Level-2 data from a single instrument. Normally this is the highest data processing step encountered in the data repositories available from space agencies or from Instruments' Teams.
b) Higher-level data distributions; usually obtained by gathering similar data from different instruments, normally covering larger areas and carefully combining all the data available via a validation process which may include elaborated physical models to elucidate discrepancies.
c) Data assimilation; possibly the most ambitious higher-level data product, combining elaborated physical models and Level-2 retrievals from one or more diverse instruments in order to fill gaps in the original data coverage. The data suitable to be combined can be varied and is considered the optimal solution within current global understanding.

ESAC Data Archive

All these data types will be produced by the UPWARDS research. 

The UPWARDS dissemination goal is to deliver all this data to the European public archives, in particular to ESA Planetary Science Archive (PSA), residing in ESAC, Madrid, Spain. The delivery process will be performed in close contact with ESAC and PSA, applying the guidelines and correct documentation.

The diversity of data products is not only valuable in itself, but it is also oriented toward exploitation and dissemination at various levels:

  • The UPWARDS Level-2 data will be of greatest value to scientists interested in future revisions of the data process or in their own higher-level data analysis. These data will enhance the current Level-2 data available in the PSA archive.

  • The UPWARDS higher level data will be an invaluable addition to ESA and the public archives, where highly processed data is very scarce. These products will be of extreme interest to scientists involved in global studies, intercomparison exercises, and design of mission phases like aerobraking or landing site selection (for InSight or MSL2020), for reference database for further scientific studies (of existing missions, or new missions like the NASA MAVEN or ISRO MOM missions) and for the preparation of future missions like ExoMars 2016 and 2018. They will also be of great value for the interested public and for producing educational and outreach material. 

    ESAC Madrid.

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