The Huygens scientific data archive: Technical overview

The Cassini/Huygens mission was launched in October 1997, and during the third orbit around Saturn, the Huygens probe was released on course to enter Titan's atmosphere. During the descent, six science instruments provided in situ and remote sensing measurements of Titan's atmosphere and surface. Doppler tracking was performed with two Earth-based radio telescopes, and a Very Long Base Interferometry (VLBI) experiment was carried out. Data acquisition began around 1500 km altitude and continued throughout the 2 h and 30 min descent and for 1 h and 12 min after landing. This unique set of data is available in the ESA Planetary Science Archive (PSA) and mirror imaged in the NASA Planetary Data System (PDS). This paper presents an overview of the process the Huygens Data Archiving Working Group followed to develop and ingest the data set. A description of the data sets is also given.