Engineering topics

Gunter, Jay P.

Publications and source records attributed to Gunter, Jay P..

4 records

NASA NTRS2010

The Kepler End-to-End Model: Creating High-Fidelity Simulations to Test Kepler Ground Processing

The Kepler mission is designed to detect the transit of Earth-like planets around Sun-like stars by observing 100,000 stellar targets. Developing and testing the Kepler ground-segment processing system, in particular the data analysis pipeline, requires high-fidelity simulated data. This simulated data is provided by the Kepler End-to-End Model (ETEM). ETEM simulates the astrophysics of planetary transits and other phenomena, properties of the Kepler spacecraft and the format of the downlinked data. Major challenges addressed by ETEM include the rapid production of large amounts of simulated data, extensibility and maintainability.

Bryson, Stephen T.↗

NASA NTRS2010

Photometer Performance Assessment in Kepler Science Data Processing

This paper describes the algorithms of the Photometer Performance Assessment (PPA) software component in the science data processing pipeline of the Kepler mission. The PPA performs two tasks: One is to analyze the health and performance of the Kepler photometer based on the long cadence science data down-linked via Ka band approximately every 30 days. The second is to determine the attitude of the Kepler spacecraft with high precision at each long cadence. The PPA component is demonstrated to work effectively with the Kepler flight data.

Li, Jie↗

NASA NTRS2010

Kepler Science Operations Center Architecture

We give an overview of the operational concepts and architecture of the Kepler Science Data Pipeline. Designed, developed, operated, and maintained by the Science Operations Center (SOC) at NASA Ames Research Center, the Kepler Science Data Pipeline is central element of the Kepler Ground Data System. The SOC charter is to analyze stellar photometric data from the Kepler spacecraft and report results to the Kepler Science Office for further analysis. We describe how this is accomplished via the Kepler Science Data Pipeline, including the hardware infrastructure, scientific algorithms, and operational procedures. The SOC consists of an office at Ames Research Center, software development and operations departments, and a data center that hosts the computers required to perform data analysis. We discuss the high-performance, parallel computing software modules of the Kepler Science Data Pipeline that perform transit photometry, pixel-level calibration, systematic error-correction, attitude determination, stellar target management, and instrument characterization. We explain how data processing environments are divided to support operational processing and test needs. We explain the operational timelines for data processing and the data constructs that flow into the Kepler Science Data Pipeline.

Middour, Christopher↗

NASA NTRS2010

Presearch Data Conditioning in the Kepler Science Operations Center Pipeline

We describe the Presearch Data Conditioning (PDC) software component and its context in the Kepler Science Operations Center (SOC) pipeline. The primary tasks of this component are to correct systematic and other errors, remove excess flux due to aperture crowding, and condition the raw flux light curves for over 160,000 long cadence (~thirty minute) and 512 short cadence (~one minute) targets across the focal plane array. Long cadence corrected flux light curves are subjected to a transiting planet search in a subsequent pipeline module. We discuss the science algorithms for long and short cadence PDC: identification and correction of unexplained (i.e., unrelated to known anomalies) discontinuities; systematic error correction; and excess flux removal. We discuss the propagation of uncertainties from raw to corrected flux. Finally, we present examples of raw and corrected flux time series for flight data to illustrate PDC performance. Corrected flux light curves produced by PDC are exported to the Multi-mission Archive at Space Telescope [Science Institute] (MAST) and will be made available to the general public in accordance with the NASA/Kepler data release policy.

Twicken, Joseph D.↗