The BepiColombo Quick-Look Analysis (QLA) system: A look inside science data

The ESA/JAXA BepiColombo spacecraft launched on the 20^th October 2018 and is now on its way to Mercury, with a planned arrival at the end of 2025 ready for the start of the science phase in early 2026. The ESA Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) payload includes 11 scientific experiments, designed to study the planetary interior, surface, and near space environment of Mercury, for a nominal duration of 1 year (+1 year extension). Due to its short duration, rapid analysis of the data collected and feedback into the planning of observations is necessary to maximise the scientific return of the mission. In addition, many science objectives require efficient collaboration between instrument teams to be achieved.

In this context, the Science Ground Segment (SGS) is developing a Quick-Look Analysis (QLA) web-interface, at the end of a data processing chain, in order to provide support to the BepiColombo science team. After each ground station pass, telemetry data are processed to produce raw and/or calibrated data in PDS4 format. These PDS4 products are stored in an internal database, which is queried by the QLA. The same products are sent to the Planetary Science Archives (PSA). This processing chain allows an early validation of the data formats during the mission.

The QLA web interface offers fine-grained access control and displays generic operational data (power consumption, data volumes, telemetry events, telecommand history, ground stations pass information, pipeline execution status), and instrument-specific housekeeping and science data views. Inside the interface, data plots (called widgets) are grouped into thematic dashboards. Widgets are fully interactive, which allows the user to maximise plots, zoom in/out, pan, turn off/on series, or export data for further analysis. They already include various plot types (time-series, spectra, spectrograms, image gallery, table views, etc.), which can be linked on a time basis. In addition to the dashboards pre-defined according to the Instrument Teams' requirements, dashboards can also be created and shared, depending on the restriction level imposed by the user. Several instruments dashboards are already available in the QLA interface, allowing both housekeeping and science data to be monitored.

This paper presents the QLA development status and plans for the interface.