MER2 (Spirit) RAT Raw (EDR) Data Set Description

Extracted from PDS3 Data Set Catalog File.

Data Set Terse Description
==========================

Mars Exploration Rover 2 Rock Abrasion Tool raw science and instrument data.

  Data Set Overview
  =================
    This Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT) (Gorevan et al., 2003) data set contains
    the primary data that is useful for investigating the mechanical
    properties of the varied rock types that the rover encountered. During
    all phases of RAT operations (i.e., calibration, seek-scan, grinding,
    diagnostic or brush station), the RAT application software stores sensor
    values and information about the RAT machine state. RAT data products
    will be comprised of time-ordered data records that include motor
    positions, motor currents, contact switch states, temperature sensor
    values, bus voltage, software/algorithm states, error bit fields, etc.
    Data records will be written to the detailed data product at a nominal
    rate of 2-Hz. Anomaly reports will include data stored at 8-Hz.

  Processing
  ==========
    RAT raw data products were generated by the MIPL (Multimission Image
    Processing Laboratory) at JPL under the Operation Products Generation
    Subsystem using the telemetry processing software mertelemproc. They are
    raw uncalibrated data reconstructed from telemetry data products and
    formatted according to the Camera EDR/RDR Software Interface
    Specification. Metadata acquired from the telemetry data headers and a
    metadata database were used to propagate the PDS label. There are not be
    multiple versions of a RAT EDR. If telemetry packets were missing during
    the initial downlink, the missing data were identified and reported for
    retransmission of the data to the ground. The data were reprocessed after
    all data is received and the original version was overwritten.

  Data
  ====
    The structure of the RAT raw product consists of an attached ASCII PDS3
    label and a binary data file.

    A RAT raw product consists of a table of time-ordered current, encoder,
    and temperature measurements for the three RAT motors during a single RAT
    deployment. A RAT product covers a maximum time interval of 6 hours, and
    has a maximum sampling rate of 8 Hz. Both the sampling rate and time
    interval are commandable. The file is binary with fixed-length records of
    96 bytes, and with a PDS3 label in ASCII text attached to the beginning
    of the file. The maximum file size is 7.8 Mbytes.

Reference
=========

   Gorevan, S. P., et al. (2003) Rock Abrasion Tool: Mars Exploration Rover
   mission, J. Geophys. Res., 108(E12), 8068, doi:10.1029/2003JE002061.