11:20 AM - 11:40 AM
[GP-03] Keys to accessing and decoding the Chang’e 4 Lunar Penetrating Radar
The successful landing of China’s Chang’e 4 robotic spacecraft mission on the far side of the moon in 2019 has attracted significant interest from the space community. A key part of this mission is the robotic Yutu-2 rover which houses unique science instrumentation including a lunar penetrating radar (LPR) system. Data has been collected by the LPR on the Yutu-2 as the rover has traversed the lunar surface through mission activity.
The LPR data collected so far has been made publicly available for researchers to download. This radar data has been encoded and supplied using the PDS4 (Planetary Data System) protocol format developed by NASA. The PDS4 data protocol is a meta format suitable for a wide range of data and sensor types where the actual decoding method is included as part of the downloaded data. However, the process of decoding this data format can prove to be a complicated process, even though documentation regarding the PDS4 protocol is publicly available. Even though several authors have published results using this data, the specific details on how to access, decode and interpret this lunar penetrating radar data has not been clearly reported.
This paper describes in simple terms how the process of accessing and decoding the Chang’e 4 LPR data can be successfully achieved. An overview of the PDS4 format is given, followed by specific examples of the data extraction routines. The primary aim of this paper is to provide the broader scientific community with means to easily access and apply their own ground penetrating radar processing routines and methodologies to investigate geological information of the moon’s subsurface and further validation with this unique data set.
The LPR data collected so far has been made publicly available for researchers to download. This radar data has been encoded and supplied using the PDS4 (Planetary Data System) protocol format developed by NASA. The PDS4 data protocol is a meta format suitable for a wide range of data and sensor types where the actual decoding method is included as part of the downloaded data. However, the process of decoding this data format can prove to be a complicated process, even though documentation regarding the PDS4 protocol is publicly available. Even though several authors have published results using this data, the specific details on how to access, decode and interpret this lunar penetrating radar data has not been clearly reported.
This paper describes in simple terms how the process of accessing and decoding the Chang’e 4 LPR data can be successfully achieved. An overview of the PDS4 format is given, followed by specific examples of the data extraction routines. The primary aim of this paper is to provide the broader scientific community with means to easily access and apply their own ground penetrating radar processing routines and methodologies to investigate geological information of the moon’s subsurface and further validation with this unique data set.
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