Titan Radio Occultation Profiles

Description

These atmospheric profiles were derived from Radio Science acquired when Cassini was occulted by Titan relative to the Deep Space Net line-of-sight. Titan encounters are designated as T1, T2 etc. and Individual profiles in this data set are identified with the number of the encounter during the mission.

During occultations the boresight of the high-gain antenna on Cassini was continuously pointed at the predicted position of the virtual image of the Earth, that point on Titan where the refraction of the atmosphere will bend the ray so that it will intercept the Earth. The soundings usually cover several degrees of latitude and longitude on Titan as the virtual image of the spacecraft as seen from the Earth descends toward the surface. Schinder et al. (2011) describe the approach used for deriving the atmospheric profiles.

The data consists of the following Occultations

Encounter*	URN	Start Time	Stop Time	Latitude	E(+/-180°) Longitude	W(0-360°) Longitude
T12-I	urn:nasa:pds:corsstpp:data_derived:corsstppt12i	2006-03-19T00:05:16	2006-03-19T00:07:12	-31.5	153.3	206.7
T12-E	urn:nasa:pds:corsstpp:data_derived:corsstppt12e	2006-03-19T00:20:20	2006-03-19T00:18:05	-52.8	17.6	342.4
T14-I	urn:nasa:pds:corsstpp:data_derived:corsstppt14i	2006-05-20T12:11:31	2006-05-20T12:13:04	-32.7	-176.6	176.6
T14-E	urn:nasa:pds:corsstpp:data_derived:corsstppt14e	2006-05-20T12:25:49	2006-05-20T12:24:16	-34.2	32.6	327.4
T27-I	urn:nasa:pds:corsstpp:data_derived:corsstppt27i	2007-03-26T00:08:53	2007-03-26T00:10:38	-69	13.7	346.3
T27-E	urn:nasa:pds:corsstpp:data_derived:corsstppt27e	2007-03-26T00:26:02	2007-03-26T00:24:38	52.9	80.8	279.2
T31-I	urn:nasa:pds:corsstpp:data_derived:corsstppt31i	2007-05-28T18:09:52	2007-05-28T18:14:48	-74.3	-23.1	23.1
T31-E	urn:nasa:pds:corsstpp:data_derived:corsstppt31e	2007-05-28T18:43:01	2007-05-28T18:39:45	74.1	119.2	240.8
T46-I	urn:nasa:pds:corsstpp:data_derived:corsstppt46i	2008-11-03T17:29:16	2008-11-03T17:30:23	-32.4	118.2	241.8
T57-I	urn:nasa:pds:corsstpp:data_derived:corsstppt57i	2009-06-22T18:08:12	2009-06-22T18:10:59	79.8	47.9	312.1
* I = ingress, E = egress.

Radio Occultation Data
Raw Data

The Raw Data products are archived in PDS3 format

Derived Data


The data associated with each occultation consists of 3 tables and labels. All related files will be returned for each occultation, including PDS3 labels from this migrated data set. In file names, "P" denotes the standard atmospheric data product containing the structure of the atmosphere, "CE" the file containing the estimated errors due to ephemeris errors, and "WE" the file containing the estimated errors due to thermal (white) noise in the frequency time series.



Additional information is available in the supporting papers:

Schinder, P.J., et al., 2011. The structure of Titan’s atmosphere from Cassini radio occultations, Icarus 215, 460–474, doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2011.07.030.

Schinder, P.J., 2012, et al., The structure of Titan’s atmosphere from Cassini radio occultations: Occultations from the Prime and Equinox missions, Icarus 221, 1020–1031, Doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2012.10.021.

Citing Data Sets for Publications

P.J. Schinder (2011), Cassini Orbiter RSS Titan Neutral Atmosphere T-P profile, NASA Planetary Data System, https://doi.org/10.17189/1518960.