Software for RAPID Data

This page gives a brief overview of the RAPID Software.

Raw data

The RAPID software operates on the raw data (level 1) files known as MSF or Merged Science Files, which are nothing more than the original raw data from ESOC packed in a more convenient form.

SCI Files

Processed data, containing particle fluxes, count rates, housekeeping information, etc, are generated from the MSF files by means of the analysis program msf2sci (which is really only one function contained in the all-purpose generalized program named gcdc_pmgr).

This code is written in Fortran-77 (with Fortran-95 features gradually slipping in) and some C modules. The software runs under Windows, Unix(Sun), and Linux.

The processing requires various suppport (or system) files, such as calibration files, caveat files, production control files.

These support files must be regularly updated, especially for processing the latest data. They must be updated more regularly than the software itself.

The processed data are written to SCI files (science files), one per original product. These are written in an ascii format specific to the RAPID.

Users were originally expected to write their own software to read SCI files and to analyse and plot the data. However, today the SCI files are used only internally as intermediate files for the generation of the CEF files for CSA.

Cluster Science Archive (CSA) and CEF files

For the Cluster Science Archive, the RAPID data are converted from the SCI files to the CEF, Cluster Exchange Format the universal format as used by all other Cluster instruments for archiving. (This can be readily converted to CDF, the Common Data Format maintained by GSFC.)

We maintain a software package to convert SCI to CEF (sci2caa) which is used to generate the CEF files delivered to CSA.

Note: the Cluster Science Archive (CSA) is the successor to the original Cluster Active Archive (CAA), which is no longer available for data downloading as of 2014. However, it is still available to the instrument teams as the interface for delivering data to CSA.

For more information on obtaining RAPID and other Cluster data, click here.