Cassini Project's Strategy to Organizing Science Data Now and in the Future

The Cassini Spacecraft toured the Saturn System for thirteen years equipped with twelve instruments each with multiple sensors that enabled scientists to observe and perform investigations. The five terabits of science data have been deposited in the Planetary Data System (PDS) for future scientists to continue to analyze. The instruments included a wide array of scientific investigations including:

1. Imaging

2. Spectrometry

3. Magnetic Field, Plasma and Particle Analysis

4. RADAR Mapping of Surfaces

5. Radio Science

During the mission, teams were also organized into several science areas: Saturn, Titan, Rings, Icy Satellites and Magnetospheric Science. The Cassini Project realized that future scientists would need science support data in order to find and analyze the data and continue to add to the knowledge of the Saturn System. These data include, but are not limited to:

1. Science Observation Intent

2. List of Instrument Observation Times

3. Calibrations

4. Visualization of Observations

5. Trajectory Information

6. Other Data Impacting the Science Return

Due to the complexity of the Cassini data, the difficulty in locating the data and the lack of derived higher order products in the Planetary Data System (PDS), the project started by working with PDS to create Web science support pages with Instrument Data User's Guides, Higher Order Products and additional PDS search tool features in the early 2010s. However, the project realized that these pages and the support data needed to be updated, as well as enhanced, based, not only on new discoveries and additional data that has been obtained, but also because the ending of Cassini Project signaled eminent inaccessibility core Cassini science experts. This presentation discusses the approaches taken by the Cassini Project, in conjunction with PDS representatives, to provide support to enable future scientists to find and analyze Saturn System data so that the Cassini Legacy of science discovery will continue.