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- NJPL1I00PDS000000000
- FILE_TYPE = TEXT
- RECORD_TYPE = STREAM
- END
- _________________________________________________________________
-
- M.I.T. Center for Space Research
- O R A D 70 Vassar Street, Cambridge, MA 02139
-
- Jan 1, 1985
-
- From: Peter G. Ford, MIT
- Subject: Pioneer Venus Radar NSSDC Data Tape Format
- Recsize: 160 bytes (Physical blocksize = 8000 bytes)
-
- _________________________________________________________________
-
-
-
- This memo describes the format and contents of the low-
- frequency NSSDC database generated from the Pioneer Venus radar
- mapper experiment. This database consists of a single file
- containing 144132 records, each of 160 ASCII bytes. The file
- begins with three header records, containing the following
- "self-defining" information:
-
- [1] The number of data fields,* followed by 4-byte-long field
- names. The Fortran format is (I3,n(1X,A4)).
-
- [2] A Fortran "FORMAT" specification that may be used to read
- the remaining records.
-
- [3] A record containing "undefined" values for all record
- variables. It may be read according to the format string in
- record 2. If a data field in a subsequent data record has
- the same value as the corresponding value in this record,
- that data item is undefined, and should be ignored.
-
- [4] The remaining 144129 records contain the ORAD radar data
- itself. Appendix C contains an example of a Fortran 77
- program that can list the data in this file. The data
- records are packed 50 per 8000 byte physical tape blocks,
- with no embedded end-of-record indicators. This facilitates
- IBM or VMS users. On an IBM 370, we would read the tape via
- OS with
-
- //FT05F001 DD UNIT=T1600,VOLUME=(n**,NL),DISP=(OLD,KEEP),
- // DCB=(RECFM=FB,LRECL=160,BLKSIZE=8000,DEN=3)
-
- and via CMS with
- __________________________
- * The first 4 fields, the Pioneer Project-supplied S/C
- Date, UT, Orbit, and Time-from-Periapsis fields are not
- included either in the field count or names in the
- first header record. They are included in the format
- specification and undefined definitions in the second
- and third header records.
-
-
-
-
- M.I.T. Room 37-491, Cambridge, MA 02139 o (617) 253-6485
-
-
-
-
-
- Pioneer Venus Radar NSSDC Data Format
-
-
- FILEDEF 5 TAP1 NL n** ( RECFM FB LRECL 160 BLOCK 8000
-
- It can be read by a UNIX system via the following commands:
-
- mt -f /dev/rmt4 fsf n-1**
- dd if=/dev/rmt4 ibs=8000 cbs=160 conv=unblock | ...
-
- and a sample Fortran 77 program for this purpose is
- contained in Appendix C.
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- __________________________
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- ** In these examples, n represents the file sequence
- number on the tape.
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- - 2 -
-
-
- M.I.T. Room 37-491, Cambridge, MA 02139 o (617) 253-6485
-
-
-
-
-
- Pioneer Venus Radar NSSDC Data Format
-
- ______________________________________________________________________
- | Format of Orbiting Radar Data Record |
- |____________________________________________________________________|
- | |Field|Fortran|Undefined|Data | Field |
- | |Name |Format | Value |Units| Description |
- |__|_____|_______|_________|_____|___________________________________|
- | 1|Date | I8 | 0 | |Year and day of observation |
- |__|_____|_______|_________|_____|___________________________________|
- | 2|Time | I9 | 0 |msec |UT from midnight |
- |__|_____|_______|_________|_____|___________________________________|
- | 3|Orbit| I5 | 0 | |Orbit number |
- |__|_____|_______|_________|_____|___________________________________|
- | 4|Roll | I6 | 0 | sec |Time _ periapsis UT |
- |__|_____|_______|_________|_____|___________________________________|
- | 5|RDAT | I8 |99999999 | |Year and day of radar measurement |
- |__|_____|_______|_________|_____|___________________________________|
- | 6|RAUT | I9 |99999999 | msec|UT of radar measurement |
- |__|_____|_______|_________|_____|___________________________________|
- | 7|BLAT | F7.3 | 999.999 | o N| Radiometer footprint latitude |
- |__|_____|_______|_________|_____|___________________________________|
- | 8|BLON | F7.3 | 999.999 | o E| Radiometer footprint longitude |
- |__|_____|_______|_________|_____|___________________________________|
- | 9|PCAL | F6.1 | 9999.9 | V |Radiometer voltage reading |
- |__|_____|_______|_________|_____|___________________________________|
- |10|SCAL | F6.1 | 9999.9 | V |Radiometer background reading |
- |__|_____|_______|_________|_____|___________________________________|
- |11|RBRT | F6.1 | 9999.9 | K |Planet Brightness temperature |
- |__|_____|_______|_________|_____|___________________________________|
- |12|RLAT | F7.3 | 999.999 | o N| Altimeter footprint latitude |
- |__|_____|_______|_________|_____|___________________________________|
- |13|RLON | F7.3 | 999.999 | o E| Altimeter footprint longitude |
- |__|_____|_______|_________|_____|___________________________________|
- |14|XLIM | F5.0 | 9999. | km |Cross-track altimeter footprint siz|
- |__|_____|_______|_________|_____|___________________________________|
- |15|YLIM | F5.0 | 9999. | km |Along-track altimeter footprint siz|
- |__|_____|_______|_________|_____|___________________________________|
- |16|RRAD | F8.3 |9999.999 | km |Measured planetary radius |
- |__|_____|_______|_________|_____|___________________________________|
- |17|DRAD | F7.3 | 999.999 | km |Formal error in DRAD |
- |__|_____|_______|_________|_____|___________________________________|
- |18|SLOP | F7.3 | 999.999 | o | RMS slope at meter scale |
- |__|_____|_______|_________|_____|___________________________________|
- |19|DSLO | F7.3 | 999.999 | o | Formal error in SLOP |
- |__|_____|_______|_________|_____|___________________________________|
- |20|RRHO | F5.2 | 99.99 | |Fresnel reflectivity |
- |__|_____|_______|_________|_____|___________________________________|
- |21|DRHO | F5.2 | 99.99 | |Formal error in RRHO |
- |__|_____|_______|_________|_____|___________________________________|
- |22|RCOR | F5.2 | 99.99 | |Correction to RRHO |
- |__|_____|_______|_________|_____|___________________________________|
- |23|RASL | F5.2 | 99.99 | |RRAD - SLOP correlation |
- |__|_____|_______|_________|_____|___________________________________|
- |24|RARH | F5.2 | 99.99 | |RRAD - RRHO correlation |
- |__|_____|_______|_________|_____|___________________________________|
- |25|SLRH | F5.2 | 99.99 | |SLOP - RRHO correlation |
- |__|_____|_______|_________|_____|___________________________________|
- - 3 -
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- Pioneer Venus Radar NSSDC Data Format
-
-
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-
-
-
-
- Description of Data Fields
-
-
- Date: The year and day-of-year of the observation, as supplied
- by the Pioneer project. The year occupies the first 5
- bytes, the day the remaining 3. This field may be used
- to correlate this radar observation record with data from
- other Pioneer Venus instruments, but the RDAT field
- should be used for radar mapping purposes.
-
- Time: The time of the observation, in milliseconds from
- midnight UT, as supplied by the Pioneer project. As with
- the Date field, this should only be used for comparison
- purposes. The accurate radar observation time is
- contained in the RAUT field, described below.
-
- Orbit: The Pioneer Venus orbit number. The spacecraft
- maintained a nearly 24-hour orbit. Radar data was taken
- from orbit 3 on December 7th, 1978 through orbit 834 on
- March 19th, 1981.
-
- Roll: The time from periapsis, in seconds, supplied by the
- Pioneer project. Negative values represent pre-periapsis
- measurements. These time fields are specified in
- precisely 12 second intervals from the periapsis time
- derived from S/C doppler tracking. The 12-second
- interval was chosen to closely approximate the S/C spin
- period.
-
- Radar data was taken once per S/C rotation, and therefore
- not at exactly 12-second intervals. In addition, the
- radar altimeter was able to refine the measurement of UT
- of periapsis. Each radar observation was therefore
- assigned to a particular 12-second interval by counting
- S/C revolutions before or after the true periapsis,
- assigning the last radar measurement before periapsis to
- the Roll field with value 0.
-
- RDAT: The year and day-of-year of the observation. The year
- occupies the first 5 bytes, the day the remaining 3.
-
- RAUT: The UT of the first main bang of the radar altimeter,
- i.e. the time that the first altimeter pulse left the
- transmitter, measured in milliseconds from midnight UT.
-
- BLAT: The latitude# of the center of the antenna beam projected
- __________________________
- # All latitudes and longitudes are expressed in
-
-
-
- - 4 -
-
-
-
-
-
- Pioneer Venus Radar NSSDC Data Format
-
-
- on the planet during the radiometric mode. This is the
- latitude of the radiometric brightness measurement
- reported in the PCAL, SCAL, and RBRT fields.
-
- BLON: The longitude of the radiometric brightness measurement
- reported in the PCAL, SCAL, and RBRT fields.
-
- PCAL: The voltage reading from the radar receiver during the
- radiometry period, when the transmitter was turned off
- and the antenna pointed within about 5o of the plane
- defined by the spacecraft spin-axis and the nadir.
-
- SCAL: The voltage reading from the radar receiver during the
- radiometry-background period, when the transmitter was
- turned off and the antenna pointed within about 5o of the
- plane defined by the spacecraft spin-axis and the zenith.
-
- RBRT: The microwave brightness temperature of the planet, in
- degrees Kelvin, derived from PCAL and SCAL. The data set
- was divided into 1 deg latitude intervals. For each
- ____
- interval, the average SCAL reading SCAL was taken to
- represent a measurement of the 3K cold sky.## The average
- ____
- PCAL values PCAL from lowland regions were interpreted as
- measuring an average temperature of 735K with an
- ____
- emissivity of 88%. RBRT is therefore obtained from SCAL
- ____
- and PCAL by the linear relationship
- . . ____ . ____
- 735c 0.88c ( PCAL - SCAL ) + 3c ( PCAL - PCAL )
- RBRT = _______________________________________________
- ____ ____
- PCAL - SCAL
-
- RLAT: The latitude of the average radar altimeter footprint for
- this observation. Because of the delay and doppler
- filtering applied by the on-board data processing
- electronics, the footprint is not necessarily centered
- about either the sub-orbital point (S/C nadir), nor is it
- symmetric with respect to the antenna axis. In addition,
- some observations are, in fact, averaged over up to 4
- measurements taken at varying doppler frequency offsets,
- corresponding to 4 separated footprints spaced along the
- S/C ground track.
- __________________________
- degrees. Latitudes are positive in the northern hemisphere,
- negative in the southern. Longitudes are always positive, in the
- range 0 through 360. Longitudes increase eastward of the prime
- meridian, and the (retrograde) planetary rotation is from east
- to west. See appendix B and the bibliography for more details.
- ## A number of measurements were found in which the Sun appeared
- in the antenna beam during the SCAL readings, and these were
- therefore discarded.
-
-
- - 5 -
-
-
-
-
-
- Pioneer Venus Radar NSSDC Data Format
-
-
- RLON: The longitude of the average radar altimeter footprint.
-
- XLIM: The average cross-track dimension of the altimeter
- footprint, in km. This is determined by the delay-
- resolution of the radar receiver.
-
- YLIM: The average along-track dimension of the altimeter
- footprint, in km. Above about 500km S/C altitude, this
- is also determined by the delay-resolution of the radar
- receiver. Below this altitude, it is determined by the
- frequency resolution. The high altitude footprints are
- therefore circular, the low altitude ones are
- approximately elliptical, with YLIM < XLIM.
-
- RRAD: The planetary radius in kilometers, measured by the radar
- altimeter.
-
- DRAD: The formal error in RRAD, in km, derived from the
- statistics of the time-sampled altimetry echo-power
- profile. All other fields that are described here as
- averages are weighted by this formal error when averaging
- over multi-doppler-offset measurements.
-
- SLOP: The r.m.s. average surface slope at meter scale, in
- degrees, from the altimeter measurement, derived by
- analyzing the time-sampled profile according to Hagfors'
- Law of near-normal-incidence scattering from a quasi-
- specular surface, where the specific radar cross-section,
- sigma_sub_0(theta) varies with the scattering angle theta
- according to
- rho_sub_0 * C
- sigma_sub_0(theta) = _____________ *
- 2
-
- [cos^4(theta) + C * sin^2(theta)]^(-3/2)
-
- where rho_sub_0 is the Fresnel reflectivity (the RRHO
- variable, see below), and the Hagfors constant C is
- interpreted as SLOP^(-2).
-
- DSLO: The formal error in SLOP, in degrees, derived during the
- process of fitting the returned time-sampled radar echo
- to a set of Hagfors Law templates.
-
- RRHO: The Fresnel reflectivity of the surface. Represented as
- rho_sub_0 in the Hagfors equation, above. This is related
- to the (complex) surface bulk dielectric constant c via
- the expression
-
- |sqrt(epsilon)-1|^2
- rho_sub_f = |_______________|
- |sqrt(epsilon)+1|
-
- where the difference between rho_sub_f and rho_sub_0 is
- explained in the RCOR entry, below.
-
-
- - 6 -
-
-
-
-
-
- Pioneer Venus Radar NSSDC Data Format
-
-
- DRHO: The formal error in RRHO, derived during the process of
- fitting the returned time-sampled radar echo to a set of
- theoretical templates derived from Hagfors Law.
-
- RCOR: A correction to RRHO to account for that fraction of the
- incident radar beam that is reflected by sub-wavelength-
- sized scatterers. This component was estimated, where
- possible, from the ORAD side-looking radar imaging mode,
- and modeled by the phenomenological formula:
-
- sigma_sub_D(theta)=g* alpha * rho_sub_f *cos^(3/2)(theta)
-
- where g ~ 2.69 is a fitted geometrical factor, and
- rho_sub_0 = (1-alpha)*rho_sub_f. alpha is the fraction of
- the surface covered by diffusely-scattering material, and
- rho_sub_f represents the "true" Fresnel reflectivity.
- RCOR is equal to rho_sub_f-rho_sub_0, i.e., it must be
- added to RRHO to obtain the true Fresnel reflectivity.
- This correction is only available for that portion of the
- altimetric dataset this is also covered by side-looking
- imaging data, i.e., from about 15 deg S to 45 deg N
- latitude.
-
- RASL: The correlation coefficient between RRAD and SLOP,
- derived while fitting the observed echo-power profile to
- Hagfors Law derived templates.
-
- RARH: The correlation coefficient between RRAD and RRHO.
-
- SLRH: The correlation coefficient between SLOP and RRHO.
-
-
-
-
-
- A. References
-
- o T. Hagfors, Radio Sci., 5, 189 (1970).
-
- o G.H. Pettengill, D.F. Horwood, C.H. Keller, "Pioneer Venus
- Orbiter Radar Mapper: Design and Operation", IEEE Trans.
- Geosci. Remote Sensing, GE-18, No. 1, January 1980.
-
- o G.H. Pettengill, E. Eliason, P.G. Ford, G.B. Loriot,
- H. Masursky, G.E. McGill, "Pioneer Venus Radar Results:
- Altimetry and Surface Properties", J. Geophys. Res., 85, 8261
- (1980).
-
- o H. Masursky, E. Eliason, P.G. Ford, G.E. McGill,
- G.H. Pettengill, G.G. Schaber, G. Schubert, "Pioneer Venus
- Radar Results: Geology from Images and Altimetry", J. Geophys.
- Res., 85, A13, 8232 (1980).
-
-
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-
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- - 7 -
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- Pioneer Venus Radar NSSDC Data Format
-
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- o G.H. Pettengill, P.G. Ford, S. Nozette, "Venus: Global Surface
- Radar Reflectivity", Science, 217, 640 (1982).
-
- o P.G. Ford, G.H. Pettengill, "Venus: Global Surface Radio
- Emissivity", Science, 220, 1379 (198.3).
-
- B. Venus Rotation Parameters
-
-
-
- Earth ecliptic coordinates of 1950.0
- Epoch of definition 1964.0
- Pole latitude 88.50737o
- Pole longitude 31.48165o
- Prime meridian latitude -1.39873o
- Prime meridian longitude 51.91788o
- Rotation period 243.0 days
- 1950 longitude of prime meridian 164.6089o
-
-
-
- C. A Fortran 77 Program to read the NSSDC Data Tape
-
- c LENGTH = maximum record length in bytes
- c MAXVAR = maximum number of variables per record
-
- parameter (LENGTH=160,MAXVAR=100)
-
- real*4 rbuf(MAXVAR), dbuf(MAXVAR)
- integer*4 ibuf(MAXVAR), idbuf(MAXVAR)
- character*4 name(MAXVAR)
- character*1 frmt(LENGTH)
-
- data name(1) / "Date" /
- data name(2) / "ScUT" /
- data name(3) / "Norb" /
- data name(4) / "Roll" /
- data nint / 0 /
-
- c read field names
- read (5,"(I3,100(1X,A4))",iostat=ios,end=40,err=40)
- & nitem, (name(i+4),i=1,nitem)
-
- c read field format
- read (5,"(1000A1)",iostat=ios,end=40,err=40)
- & (frmt(i),i=1,LENGTH)
-
- c Compute nint = number of integer variables in each record.
- c It is assumed that all integers precede all floats.
- do 10 i=1,LENGTH
- 10 if (frmt(i) .eq. "i" .or. frmt(i) .eq. "I") nint = nint + 1
-
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- Pioneer Venus Radar NSSDC Data Format
-
-
- c read undefined field values
- read (5,frmt,iostat=ios,end=40,err=40)
- & (idbuf(i),i=1,nint), (dbuf(i),i=nint+1,nitem+4)
-
- do 20 nrec = 1, 100000
-
- c read a data record
- read (5,frmt,iostat=ios,end=30,err=40)
- & (ibuf(i),i=1,nint), (rbuf(i),i=nint+1,nitem+4)
- if (nrec .gt. 1) write (6,"(1x)")
-
- c transform seconds +- periapsis into roll number
- ibuf(4) = ibuf(4)/12
-
- c display field values
- do 20 n = 1,nitem+4
-
- if ((n .gt. 4 .and. n .le. nint .and. ibuf(n) .eq. idbuf(n))
- & .or. (n .gt. nint .and. rbuf(n) .eq. dbuf(n))) then
- write (6,"(1X,I6,'.',I2,'.. ',A4,' = ?')")
- & nrec, n, name(n)
- else if (n .le. nint) then
- write (6,"(1X,I6,'.',I2,'.. ',A4,' = ',I9)")
- & nrec, n, name(n), ibuf(n)
- else
- write (6,"(1X,I6,'.',I2,'.. ',A4,' = ',F12.5)")
- & nrec, n, name(n), rbuf(n)
- end if
-
- 20 continue
- 30 stop
-
- c error return
- 40 write (0,"('read error ',i3)") ios
- stop 1
- end
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