Metadata and their importance in SO/PHI's on-board data processing

TL;DR

This paper discusses the design and importance of a custom metadata logging system for the Solar Orbiter's Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager, enabling efficient on-board data processing, debugging, and data sharing.

Contribution

It introduces a novel metadata logging system tailored for SO/PHI, enhancing autonomous data processing and debugging capabilities.

Findings

Metadata logging improves debugging efficiency

The system supports autonomous on-board data processing

Metadata is crucial for science data quality and sharing

Abstract

To cope with the telemetry limitations, the Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager on Solar Orbiter does full on-board data processing. Metadata are central to the autonomous processing flow, crucial for providing science ready data sets to the community, as well as important in the blind debugging process that will occur in the commissioning phase. We designed a custom metadata logging system for SO/PHI. This paper shows how the logged information is used in the blind debugging scenario.