9. Data tutorials for the JUICE monitoring and navigation cameras

 

ESA supervisor: Thomas Cornet
Collaborator(s): Ines Belgacem, Marc Costa, Mark Bentley

Site: ESAC

The ESA JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE) mission launched in April 2023 is currently on a journey to the Jupiter system. Together with a multitude of scientific instruments, the spacecraft is carrying facility cameras, i.e. cameras that are not part of the science payload but are instead designed to monitor the deployment of spacecraft elements or as part as Juice’s advanced navigation system. Despite their purpose not being science oriented, they can be operated during planetary close encounters. On the 19-20 August 2024, Juice successfully executed a Lunar-Earth Gravity Assist (LEGA), major event and first of its kind. During these two days, the Navigation Camera (NavCam) and the JUICE Monitoring Cameras (JMC) acquired data of the Moon and the Earth. The data, processed by the JUICE Science Operations Centre (SOC), are now available in the Planetary Science Archive (PSA).

This traineeship aims at evaluating and improving the data processing applied to the JMC and NavCam imagery raw data products as well as facilitating their use by the science community. JMC is a wide angle camera using a colour filter array. NavCam is a panchromatic camera with a narrower field-of-view, producing higher resolution black and white data. The trainee will produce data tutorials to show users how to 1) access the archived data from the Planetary Science Archive (PSA), 2) manipulate those data products, including how to calibrate them further, and 3) generate practical examples of data visualisations.

Project duration: 4-6 months.

Desirable expertise or programming language:

  • Interest in Planetary Sciences.
  • Experience with image processing.
  • Experience with coding (e.g. python, java).
  • Experience using Jupyter Lab.
  • Experience with planetary imagery data sets.
  • Good writing skills (English).

 

To apply for this project please fill in an online application form through the following link.