PDS label

NASA Planetary Data System (PDS) data files have a plain-text label either embedded at the beginning of the file or in a separate file. The label has metadata that describes the format of the data, as well as information about when the data were acquired and certain instrument-specific details.

NASAVIew is a free program from PDS that will display a PDS-labeled image. PDS deliberately does not use any commercial or proprietary formats to archive data, in order to ensure the long-term viability of the data.

Label versions

Data from MER and MSL are currently formatted using PDS version 3 standards. An example label from MSL Navcam is shown below.