SPICE DATA

 

SPICE data, also known as "kernels" for ESA Planetary missions are produced by the ESA SPICE Service. Two types of data are available from this website:

Operational SPICE Kernel Datasets refer to study, operational, or legacy missions and they are/were used for science operations and data analysis by the Science Ground Segments, Instrument Teams and scientists during the lifespan of the mission. These kernels were either generated or were accessible by the ESA SPICE Service. These kernels are used during the day to day operations of the missions by the Science Ground Segment and the insturment teams and part of them are generated by an automatic pipeline. These kernels are recommended for users that fall within the scope of the described applicability of the kernels. 

PSA PDS Archived Kernels are peer reviewed archives of the ESA missions SPICE Kernel Data Sets delivered and stored into the ESA's Planetary Science Archive (PSA). There, the archived SPICE data are available to anyone interested. These are accumulating PDS data sets. For SPICE users who do not need the most recent flight operations kernels, acquiring these archived kernels using the PDS SPICE Archives link above is the recommended approach. This way you will be sure to get the entire collection of archived kernels available as of the current archive date.

 

If you are not familiar with how to use SPICE data, we recommend you to read about the following explanation provided by NAIF.