Development of Planetary Data Products and Future-Ready Long-Term Archival Prospects of the Chandrayaan-3 LIBS Instrument

Development, archival and the long-term preservation of the scientific data collected from planetary missions in an understandable format is the paramount need to serve the necessities of interdisciplinary researchers and specialists. Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) planetary science archive (PSA) data records are compliant with NASA’s Planetary Data System (PDS) Standards. This paper presents details of data pipeline schemes adapted for the development of data products and long-term archival realization catering to one of the scientific instruments, named LIBS (Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscope), flown in the recent Indian lunar mission, Chandrayaan-3. Data collected by this instrument is an invaluable resource for understanding the moon’s surface chemistry, as investigations were performed in a region which hasn’t been explored by any other space agency. The collected data that was archived, complying with the PDS4.0 standard, is validated against standard schema and made available to the scientific community via the Policy based data Retrieval, Analytics, Dissemination and Notification System (PRADAN) of the Indian Space Science Data Centre (ISSDC).