RO-C-RPCLAP-3-ESC1-CALIB

Data Set Overview Contents: A. Operations overview B. Dataset status C. Scientific use A. Operations overview LAP operations are described in the operations report, IRFUROSOPRESC1 in the DOCUMENT/FLIGHT_REPORTS directory of this archive. B. Dataset status This dataset contains scientifically useful data from the Rosetta RPCLAP instrument. The data contained are primary instrument data, calibrated to physical units (volts and amperes) and with instrumental offsets removed. See the caveats in Section C below for data use. A possible timing issue warned for in a previous delivery (the prelander phase, PRL) turned out to be spurious (due to an error in timing checks). There are thus no known timing issues. C. Scientific use The data can be used for scientific analysis, but this requires some familiarity with this type of data. At a later stage, a DERIVED data archive will be delivered, providing directly useful scientific quantities (e.g. plasma density, wave spectra, electron temperature). Caveats: a. For probetospacecraft potential (Vps) time series: this is a commonly used proxy for the plasma density in tenuous plasmas. However, because the perturbations from the solar panels, the wake formed behind the s/c and solar panels in the solar wind, and the photoelectron cloud around the spacecraft are all sensitive to the probe location, Vps can be used as a density proxy only during intervals of constant pointing. See the paper by Edberg et al (Simultaneous measurements of the Martian plasma environment by Rosetta and Mars Express, Planet. Space Sci., 57, 10851096, 2008. doi:10.1016/j.pss.2008.10.016) for an example of how Vps may be used as a plasma density proxy. Perturbations from wake and photoemission have been studied by Sjogren (report available at http://www.space.irfu.se/exjobb/2009_alex_sjogren/). b. For the same reasons, the probe bi truncated!, Please see actual data for full text [truncated!, Please see actual data for full text]