What's inside

The Analyst's Notebook contains sequence information, engineering and science data, and documentation from surface operations of NASA landed missions to the Moon and Mars. The science data have been peer-reviewed and publicly released. All information is ITAR cleared.

Data from the archives

The mission archives in the Planetary Data System (PDS) are the foundation of the Notebook. These data have been peer reviewed and are available for science research at no charge. Data downloaded from the Notebook are identical to data downloaded from PDS online data stores.

In some cases, representations of data, such as image thumbnails, graphs, and quick look products, are presented in the Notebook. In addition, some data may be downloaded in alternative formats that are not calibrated or are not archive products.

Archived data in the Notebook are organized differently than in the PDS archives. The archives are generally organized in a series of directories that contain the data files and associated labels. In the Notebook, related products (e.g., a left/right stereo image pair) are grouped together.

Want to go deeper? Check out understanding data products and the image primer.

Documentation from the archives

The science archives contain mission and instrument documents, including details on data collection, calibration, and formats. For science users, the data product SIS (Software Interface Specification) is the most useful document for understanding the data products.

Archive documents can be found in the Notebook under the Resources tab or from a data product detail page by selecting (Help) > All archive documents on the menu bar. When downloading data using the cart, you will have the option of adding archive documents to your cart during checkout.

Additional information from the science team

The Notebook contains data provided by the science team that are not included in the archive. These data have not been peer reviewed.

  • Daily reports (e.g., mission manager reports) INSApplies to the
    InSight AN
    M20Applies to the
    Mars 2020 AN
    MERApplies to the
    MER AN
    MSLApplies to the
    MSL AN
    PHXApplies to the
    PHX AN
  • Targets MERApplies to the
    MER AN
    MSLApplies to the
    MSL AN
    PHXApplies to the
    PHX AN
  • Sol activity plans M20Applies to the
    Mars 2020 AN
    MERApplies to the
    MER AN
    MSLApplies to the
    MSL AN
  • Traverse (drive) map APOApplies to the
    Apollo AN
    M20Applies to the
    Mars 2020 AN
    MERApplies to the
    MER AN
    MSLApplies to the
    MSL AN

Notebook-generated components

A number of Notebook elements are created to support ease of use, but they are not peer reviewed and should not be used as the basis of scientific research.

Target locator images

Images showing target locations are generated using information provided by the science team. Images are generated on the fly and labels are added. More info in this deep dive on targets.

Browse images

Science images contain too much information to be stored in browser-friendly formats such as JPEG. The images you see in the Notebook are quick look images generated by the science team or by the Notebook software on the fly. They are sufficient quality for identifying a given data product, but the are not suitable for science research.

In addition to browse images, some non-image data also have browse versions in the Notebook, as described below.

mission specific

InSight

IFG, PS, TWINS, and SEIS graphs

Science data are plotted to provide a quick look view of the product.

MER

APXS, Moessbauer, Mini-TES, and RAT graphs

Science data are plotted to provide a quick look view of the product.

MSL

Context mosaics

In addition to image mosaics from the archive, context mosaics are generated from sequences of Navcam, MAHLI, and Mastcam images to fill in gaps where no archive mosaic exists or to provide a view different from an existing archive mosaic.