Space Planet Instrument C-matrix Events
Encyclopedia
SPICE is a NASA
ancillary information system used to compute geometric information used in planning and analyzing science observations obtained from robotic spacecraft. It is also used in planning missions and conducting numerous engineering functions needed to carry out those missions.
SPICE was developed at NASA's Navigation and Ancillary Information Facility (NAIF), located at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
.
SPICE has become the de facto standard for handling much of the so-called observation geometry information on NASA's planetary missions, and it is now widely used in support of science data analysis on planetary missions of other space agencies as well. Some SPICE capabilities are used on a variety of astrophysics and solar physics missions.
SPICE consists of both data and software.
SPICE data are archived in a national archive center such as the NASA Planetary Data System
archives.
, FORTRAN
, IDL
, and MATLAB
.
The Toolkits also include a number of utility and application programs. The SPICE Toolkits are available for most popular computing platforms, operating systems and compilers. Extensive documentation accompanies each Toolkit.
Prospective users are cautioned that it takes some effort to learn to use this software: it is targeted for professionals in the space exploration business.
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
ancillary information system used to compute geometric information used in planning and analyzing science observations obtained from robotic spacecraft. It is also used in planning missions and conducting numerous engineering functions needed to carry out those missions.
SPICE was developed at NASA's Navigation and Ancillary Information Facility (NAIF), located at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center located in the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles County, California, United States. The facility is headquartered in the city of Pasadena on the border of La Cañada Flintridge and Pasadena...
.
SPICE has become the de facto standard for handling much of the so-called observation geometry information on NASA's planetary missions, and it is now widely used in support of science data analysis on planetary missions of other space agencies as well. Some SPICE capabilities are used on a variety of astrophysics and solar physics missions.
SPICE consists of both data and software.
Data
SPICE data files are usually referred to as "kernels." These files provide information such as spacecraft trajectory and orientation; target body ephemeris, size and shape; instrument field-of-view size, shape and orientation; specifications for reference frames; and tabulations of time system conversion coefficients.SPICE data are archived in a national archive center such as the NASA Planetary Data System
Planetary Data System
The Planetary Data System is a distributed data system that NASA uses to archive data collected by Solar System robotic missions and ground-based support data associated with those missions. PDS is managed by NASA Headquarters' Planetary Sciences Division. The PDS is an active archive that makes...
archives.
Software
The SPICE system includes software referred to as The SPICE Toolkit, used for reading the SPICE data files and computing geometric parameters based on data from those files. These tools are provided as subroutine libraries in four programming languages: CC (programming language)
C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....
, FORTRAN
Fortran
Fortran is a general-purpose, procedural, imperative programming language that is especially suited to numeric computation and scientific computing...
, IDL
IDL
- General :* International Date Line, the time zone date boundary* Intermediate density lipoprotein* John F. Kennedy International Airport, from when it was named "Idlewild Airport" * International Drivers License...
, and MATLAB
MATLAB
MATLAB is a numerical computing environment and fourth-generation programming language. Developed by MathWorks, MATLAB allows matrix manipulations, plotting of functions and data, implementation of algorithms, creation of user interfaces, and interfacing with programs written in other languages,...
.
The Toolkits also include a number of utility and application programs. The SPICE Toolkits are available for most popular computing platforms, operating systems and compilers. Extensive documentation accompanies each Toolkit.
Tutorials and Programming Lessons
A set of tutorials is available to help users understand the SPICE data and software. Some "open book" programming lessons useful in learning how to program using Toolkit subroutines are also available.Availability
The SPICE data, Toolkit software, tutorials and programming lessons are all freely available from the NAIF website.Prospective users are cautioned that it takes some effort to learn to use this software: it is targeted for professionals in the space exploration business.