Main Page

What's New in SPICE

   What's New in SPICE
   Introduction
   Version 63 --- April 2009
      Environments
         New Environments
         Complete List of Supported Environments
         Lahey Memory Issue Related to File Opening/Closing
         Scratch EK File Issue in Icy on PC/Windows
      Geometry Finder (GF) Subsystem
         SPICELIB High-Level GF APIs
         CSPICE High-Level GF APIs
         Icy and Mice High-Level GF APIs
      SPICELIB/CSPICE/Icy/Mice
         SURFPV/surfpv_c (SPICELIB/CSPICE only)
         DVSEP/dvsep_c (SPICELIB/CSPICE only)
         GETFOV
         FURNSH
         Improved Error Messages from PXFORM/SXFORM
         Built-in NAIF ID Code/Name Definitions
      Mice (MATLAB interface to CSPICE) Only
         New Interfaces
      New and Updated Applications
         FRMDIFF
         CKBRIEF
      Documentation
         Language Specific Required Reading Documents
         CKBRIEF User's Guide
      Bug Fixes
         SINCPT, SRFXPT
         POOL Watchers
         Frame subsystem
         Error handling
         Non-printing Character Detection in Time System
         MKSPK
         CKBRIEF
   Version 62 --- March 2008
      Environments
         New Environments
         Complete List of Supported Environments
         Use of -m32 Option
         Lahey Memory Issue Related to File Opening/Closing
         Scratch EK File Issue in Icy on PC/Windows
      Mice
      SPICELIB/CSPICE/Icy/Mice
         New ``Surface Intercept'' routine SINCPT
         New ``Illumination Angles'' routine ILUMIN
         New ``Sub-observer Point'' routine SUBPNT
         New ``Sub-solar Point'' Routine SUBSLR
         Improvements of Aberration Corrected Velocity in the SPK Subsystem
         New SPK Routines
         New Binary PCK Coverage Routines PCKFRM and PCKCOV
         New Routine WNCARD
         New Routine EDTERM
         SCLK Buffer Size Increase
         TABs in Text Kernels
         Built-in NAIF ID Code/Name Definitions
      Icy (IDL interface to CSPICE) Only
         New and Updated Interfaces
      Documentation
         Permutted Index for Icy and Mice
         BRIEF User's Guide
         Documentation on NAIF Web Server
      BRIEF
      CKBRIEF
      MKSPK
      SUBPT Cookbook
      Bug Fixes
         EV2LIN
         HYPTOF
         INELPL
         RAXISA
         SC01
         SRFXPT
         BRIEF
         CKBRIEF
         Header Updates
   Version 61 --- December 2006
      Rules Regarding Use of SPICE Components
      Environments
         New Environments
         Deprecated Environments
         Complete List of Supported Environments
         Use of -fPIC/-KPIC Option
         Lahey Memory Issue Related to File Opening/Closing
         Scratch EK File Issue in Icy on PC/Windows
      Documentation
      New Applications
         MSOPCK
         SPKDIFF
      SPICELIB/CSPICE/Icy
         KCLEAR Routine
         DAF Comment Area Routines
         DAF-based Kernel Open Routines
         DAFONW Routine
         SPKW02, SPKW03, and SPKW05 Routines
         Built-in NAIF ID Code/Name Definitions
      CSPICE Only
         New Wrappers
      Icy (IDL interface to CSPICE) Only
         New Interfaces
      Bug Fixes
         CKE05
         ET2LST
         UNLOAD
         STR2ET
         SURFPT
         CHRONOS
         Icy
         MKSPK
   Version 60 --- December 2005
      Bug Fixes
         Access to High Precision Binary Earth PCK
   Version 59 --- November 2005
      Rules Regarding Use of SPICE Components
      Environments
         New Environments
         Supported Environments
         Optimization for C/Icy environments
         Lahey Memory Issue Related to File Opening/Closing
         Scratch EK File Issue in Icy on PC/Windows
      SPICELIB/CSPICE/Icy
         Loading of Non-Native Text Kernels Files
         Additional Testing
         Deprecation of BODVAR in favor of BODVRD and BODVCD
         ``In Place'' Routines
         SPK Segment Buffer Increase
         EK Buffer Increased
         Built-in NAIF ID Code/Name Definitions
         Documentation
      CSPICE
         New Wrappers
      Icy (Interactive Data Language interface to CSPICE)
         Vectorization
         New interfaces
      Bug Fixes
         Non-standard Use of Duplicate Arguments in FORTRAN
         NEARPT
         ET2LST
         GETFOV
         CKW03
         INEDPL
         INSRTC
         String Parsing Routines
   Version 58 --- January 2005
      Environments
      SPICELIB/CSPICE/Icy
         Parameterized Dynamic Frames
         CK/SPK Coverage Summary Routines
         Planetographic Coordinate Conversion Routines
         ``L-sub-S'' Solar Longitude Routine
         Built-in NAIF ID Code/Name Definitions
         Documentation
      CSPICE
         New Wrappers
      Icy (Interactive Data Language interface to CSPICE)
         Vectorization
         Windows
         Other new interfaces
      Bug Fixes
         MKSPK Processing of TLE
         MKSPK Adding Comments When Appending to Existing SPK
         Icy/cspice_getfov
         DVPOOL/dvpool_c/cspice_dvpool
         CSPICE/kdata_c Function
         FRINFO/frinfo_c/cspice_frinfo
   Version 57 --- March 2004
      Environments
      Icy
      SPICELIB/CSPICE
         SRFXPT
         Support for Satellite IDs in the Range 10000-99999
         Detection of Non-native Text Files
         Documentation
         Built-in NAIF ID Code/Name Definitions
      INSPEKT
      TOBIN
   Version 56 --- August 2003
      Environments
      SPICELIB/CSPICE
         Documentation
         Built-in NAIF ID Code/Name Definitions
      CHRONOS
      Bug Fixes
         Reading Files with MAC-OSX Absoft FORTRAN Toolkit
         DAS Scratch Files
         Argument Checking in CSPICE Error Handling Functions
   Version 55 --- March 2003
      Environments
      SPICELIB
         SPKW01
         DASCLS
         SPKBSR
         Kernel POOL
         Type 1 SCLK
      CSPICE
         New CSPICE wrappers
      Bug Fixes
         Built-in NAIF ID Code/Name Definitions
         DASCUD
         OSCELT
         CKE05
         CKBRIEF
   Version 54 --- December 2002
      Mailing Lists
      Environments
      COOKBOOK Programs
      New Built-in NAIF ID Code/Name Definitions
      Documentation
      Bug Fixes
         Built-in Body-Fixed Frame for Pan
         Surface Intercept Routine
         DAS Writer Routines
         CSPICE Cell Implementation
         Body Name to Associated Frame Conversion Routine
         CHRONOS
   Version 53 --- September 2002
      Environments
      CSPICE
         New CSPICE wrappers for cell, set, and windows routines
         New CSPICE wrappers for sorting and searching routines
         New CSPICE wrappers for string manipulation and parsing routines
      SPICELIB
         SPK Type 18
         CK Type 5
      BRIEF
      COOKBOOK
      Bug Fixes
         ID-to-name Translation
         Built-in Body-Fixed Frames
         Binary architecture consistency check at run-time
         Long/truncated lines in text kernel files
         VMS Read-Only Access File Open Failure
   Version 52 --- January 2002
      Environments
      SPICELIB
         Run-Time Binary File Format Translation
         Open File Limit Increase
         SPK aberration corrections
         Instrument Kernel Support
         Kernel POOL
         Jacobian routines
         NAIF ID to Object Name Mapping
         Documentation
      CSPICE
         New CSPICE wrappers for EK routines
         Miscellaneous new CSPICE wrappers
      CKBRIEF
      COMMNT
      MKSPK
      VERSION
      Bug Fixes
         CK, PCK, and SPK segment buffering and selection
         Const-qualification for various CSPICE interfaces
         CSPICE function gcpool_c fixed
         MOVED fix for Fortran PC Linux platform
         EK query processing using LIKE operator and null values
         EK time conversion
         EK documentation
         Source code clean-up
   Version 51 --- April 2000
      SPICELIB
         Instrument Kernel Support
         Binary Kernel Recognition
         CK
         SPK
         Miscellaneous
      MKSPK
      SPKMERGE
         Bug Fixes
   Version 50 --- October 1999
      CSPICE
      Additions and Extensions to SPICE routines
         Loading Kernels
         Position Only Interface.
         ID-codes
         Kernel Pool Enhancements
         Continuous Spacecraft Clocks
         Bad FTP File Transfer Detection
         CK Writer Enhancements
         Bugs
      SPICE Utility Programs
         TOBIN
         COMMNT
         CKBRIEF
         MKSPK
      Documentation
   Version 49 --- September 1998
   Version 48 --- May 1998
   Version 47 --- July 1997
      Documentation
      Software
         SPK
         Frames
         Time
         Bug Fixes
   Version 46 --- January 1997
         Documentation
         Time
   Version 45 --- October 1996
   Version 44 --- August 1996
         SPK Subsystem
         Inspekt
         Bug Fixes
   Version 43 --- May 1996
         Brief
         Star Catalogs.
         CHGIRF
         BODTRN
         Performance Improvements
   Version 42 --- December 1995
   Version 41 --- October 1995
      Non-inertial Reference Frames

What's New in SPICE

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Introduction

This document describes new and extended capabilities of the latest version of the SPICE Toolkit. It also notes bug fixes. Each new version of the Toolkit is documented in a separate chapter that is titled with the version of the Toolkit. The most recent version of the Toolkit is documented first. The next most recent version is documented next, and so on.

The versions of the Toolkit changes described in this document are

   Version 63
   Version 62
   Version 61
   Version 60
   Version 59
   Version 58
   Version 57
   Version 56
   Version 55
   Version 54
   Version 53
   Version 52
   Version 51
   Version 50
   Version 49
   Version 48
   Version 47
   Version 46
   Version 45
   Version 44
   Version 43
   Version 42
   Version 41

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Version 63 --- April 2009

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Environments

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New Environments

The SPICE Toolkit is now officially supported on these new environments:

   FORTRAN Toolkit:
 
      Mac/Intel    OS-X          GFORTRAN
      PC           Linux         GFORTRAN
 
   Icy:
 
      PC           Linux         gCC / IDL 6.4 / 64bit
      Sun          Solaris       gCC / IDL 6.4 / 64bit
 
   Mice:
 
      PC           Linux         gCC / MATLAB 7.x / 64bit

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Complete List of Supported Environments

This is the complete list of environments on which the N0063 version of the SPICE Toolkit is supported:

   FORTRAN Toolkit:
 
      Mac/Intel    OS-X          Intel FORTRAN
      Mac/Intel    OS-X          GFORTRAN
      Mac/PowerPC  OS-X          Absoft FORTRAN
      Mac/PowerPC  OS-X          g77
      PC           CYGWIN        g77
      PC           Linux         g77
      PC           Linux         GFORTRAN
      PC           Linux         Intel FORTRAN
      PC           Windows       Compaq Visual (Digital) FORTRAN
      PC           Windows       Intel FORTRAN
      PC           Windows       Lahey FORTRAN 95
      Sun          Solaris       SUN FORTRAN
 
   CSPICE:
 
      Mac/Intel    OS-X          Apple C
      Mac/PowerPC  OS-X          Apple C
      PC           CYGWIN        gCC
      PC           Linux         gCC / 32bit
      PC           Linux         gCC / 64bit
      PC           Windows       MS Visual C
      Sun          Solaris       gCC / 32bit
      Sun          Solaris       gCC / 64bit
      Sun          Solaris       SUN C
 
   Icy:
 
      Mac/Intel    OS-X          Apple C / IDL 6.4 / 32bit
      Mac/PowerPC  OS-X          Apple C / IDL 6.4 / 32bit
      PC           Linux         gCC / IDL 6.4 / 32bit
      PC           Linux         gCC / IDL 6.4 / 64bit
      PC           Windows       MS Visual C / IDL 6.4 / 32bit
      Sun          Solaris       gCC / IDL 6.4 / 32bit
      Sun          Solaris       gCC / IDL 6.4 / 64bit
      Sun          Solaris       SUN C / IDL 6.4 / 32bit
 
   Mice:
 
      Mac/Intel    OS-X          Apple C / MATLAB 7.x / 32bit
      Mac/PowerPC  OS-X          Apple C / MATLAB 7.x / 32bit
      PC           Linux         gCC / MATLAB 7.x / 32bit
      PC           Linux         gCC / MATLAB 7.x / 64bit
      PC           Windows       MS Visual C / MATLAB 7.x / 32bit

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Lahey Memory Issue Related to File Opening/Closing

The Lahey memory issue related to file opening/closing described in the N0061 section of this document still persists in the N0063 version of the Toolkit.

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Scratch EK File Issue in Icy on PC/Windows

The scratch EK file issue in Icy on PC/Windows described in the N0061 section of this document still persists in the N0063 version of the Toolkit.

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Geometry Finder (GF) Subsystem

The N0063 version offers the first official release of the initial set of the SPICE Geometry Finder (GF) subsystem interfaces. The GF subsystem answers questions such as:

--

The GF Required Reading document, gf.req, provides a comprehensive description of the GF subsystem and its high-, mid-, and low-level APIs and includes numerous usage examples.

For your convenience, the language-specific high-level GF APIs included in this release are listed in the three subsections below.

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SPICELIB High-Level GF APIs

SPICELIB High-Level GF APIs for finding times of events satisfying numerical constraints are:

      GFDIST          determines time intervals when a specified
                      constraint on observer-target distance is met.
 
      GFPOSC          determines time intervals when a coordinate of an
                      observer-target position vector satisfies a
                      numerical constraint.
 
      GFSEP           determines time intervals when the angular
                      separation between the position vectors of two
                      target bodies relative to an observer satisfies a
                      numerical relationship.
 
      GFSNTC          determines time intervals when a coordinate of a
                      ray-surface intercept position vector satisfies a
                      numerical constraint.
 
      GFSUBC          determines time intervals when a coordinate of a
                      sub-observer point position vector satisfies a
                      numerical constraint.

SPICELIB High-Level GF APIs for finding times of events satisfying FOV constraints are:

      GFRFOV          determines time intervals when a specified ray
                      intersects the space bounded by the field-of-view
                      (FOV) of a specified instrument.
 
      GFTFOV          determines time intervals when a specified
                      ephemeris object intersects the space bounded by
                      the field-of-view (FOV) of a specified
                      instrument.

SPICELIB High-Level GF APIs for finding times of occultations are:

      GFOCLT          determines time intervals when an observer sees
                      one target occulted by another.

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CSPICE High-Level GF APIs

CSPICE High-Level GF APIs for finding times of events satisfying numerical constraints are:

      gfdist_c        determines time intervals when a specified
                      constraint on observer-target distance is met.
 
      gfposc_c        determines time intervals when a coordinate of an
                      observer-target position vector satisfies a
                      numerical constraint.
 
      gfsep_c         determines time intervals when the angular
                      separation between the position vectors of two
                      target bodies relative to an observer satisfies a
                      numerical relationship.
 
      gfsntc_c        determines time intervals when a coordinate of a
                      ray-surface intercept position vector satisfies a
                      numerical constraint.
 
      gfsubc_c        determines time intervals when a coordinate of a
                      sub-observer point position vector satisfies a
                      numerical constraint.

CSPICE High-Level GF APIs for finding times of events satisfying FOV constraints are:

      gfrfov_c        determines time intervals when a specified ray
                      intersects the space bounded by the field-of-view
                      (FOV) of a specified instrument.
 
      gftfov_c        determines time intervals when a specified
                      ephemeris object intersects the space bounded by
                      the field-of-view (FOV) of a specified
                      instrument.

CSPICE High-Level GF APIs for finding times of occultations are:

      gfoclt_c        determines time intervals when an observer sees
                      one target occulted by another.

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Icy and Mice High-Level GF APIs

Icy and Mice High-Level GF APIs for finding times of events satisfying numerical constraints are:

      cspice_gfdist   determines time intervals when a specified
                      constraint on observer-target distance is met.
 
      cspice_gfposc   determines time intervals when a coordinate of an
                      observer-target position vector satisfies a
                      numerical constraint.
 
      cspice_gfsep    determines time intervals when the angular
                      separation between the position vectors of two
                      target bodies relative to an observer satisfies a
                      numerical relationship.
 
      cspice_gfsntc   determines time intervals when a coordinate of a
                      ray-surface intercept position vector satisfies a
                      numerical constraint.
 
      cspice_gfsubc   determines time intervals when a coordinate of a
                      sub-observer point position vector satisfies a
                      numerical constraint.

Icy and Mice High-Level GF APIs for finding times of events satisfying FOV constraints are:

      cspice_gfrfov   determines time intervals when a specified ray
                      intersects the space bounded by the field-of-view
                      (FOV) of a specified instrument.
 
      cspice_gftfov   determines time intervals when a specified
                      ephemeris object intersects the space bounded by
                      the field-of-view (FOV) of a specified
                      instrument.

Icy and Mice High-Level GF APIs for finding times of occultations are:

      cspice_gfoclt   determines time intervals when an observer sees
                      one target occulted by another.

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SPICELIB/CSPICE/Icy/Mice

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SURFPV/surfpv_c (SPICELIB/CSPICE only)

The SURFPV routine (surfpv_c in SPICE) finding the state (position and velocity) of the surface intercept defined by a specified ray, ray velocity, and ellipsoid was added to the Toolkit.

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DVSEP/dvsep_c (SPICELIB/CSPICE only)

The DVSEP function (dvsep_c in CSPICE) calculating the time derivative of the separation angle between two input states was added to the Toolkit.

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GETFOV

The header of the GETFOV routine (getfov_c in CSPICE, cspice_getfov in Icy and Mice) was updated to provide a comprehensive specification of the IK keywords used to define FOVs and to include more practical examples of FOV definitions.

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FURNSH

The FURNSH routine (furnsh_c in CSPICE, cspice_furnsh in Icy and Mice) was updated to support continued path values and to reject files with names longer than 255 characters.

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Improved Error Messages from PXFORM/SXFORM

The formerly rather cryptic error messages ``There is insufficient information available to transform from ... to frame ....'' generated by PXFORM/SXFORM (pxform_c/sxform_c in CSPICE, cspice_pxform/cspice_sxform in Icy and Mice) have been improved to provide more context and to suggest what SPICE data may be missing.

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Built-in NAIF ID Code/Name Definitions

The following new built-in NAIF ID code/name definitions have been added to the Toolkit:

   Spacecraft:
 
           -5    PLC
           -5    PLANET-C
           -68   MMO
           -68   MERCURY MAGNETOSPHERIC ORBITER
           -69   MPO
           -69   MERCURY PLANETARY ORBITER
          -140   EPOCH
          -140   DIXI
 
   Asteroids:
 
       2002867   STEINS

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Mice (MATLAB interface to CSPICE) Only

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New Interfaces

NAIF added the following interfaces to Mice for this release:

   cspice_cgv2el
   cspice_el2cgv
   cspice_lmpool
   cspice_nvc2pl
   cspice_nvp2pl
   cspice_saelgv
   cspice_vrotv
   cspice_wncard
   cspice_wnsumd
   cspice_wnvald

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New and Updated Applications

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FRMDIFF

The FRMDIFF program was added to the application set included in each SPICE toolkit. This program samples orientation of a reference frame known to SPICE or computes differences between orientations of two reference frames known to SPICE, and either displays this orientation or these differences, or shows statistics about it or them.

Refer to the FRMDIFF User's Guide, frmdiff.ug, for more information about the program.

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CKBRIEF

The CKBRIEF program was updated to display names of the frames associated with CK IDs when the new command line option ``-n'' is specified. The help information that the program displays when the command line option ``-h'' is specified was updated for clarity and contents.

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Documentation

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Language Specific Required Reading Documents

The following Required Reading documents have been adapted for Icy and Mice:

   gf.req
   frames.req
   kernel.req
   naif_ids.req
   time.req
   windows.req

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CKBRIEF User's Guide

The CKBRIEF User's Guide, ckbrief.ug, was fully rewritten to describe new features added to the program and to provide examples illustrating all aspects of the program's functionality.

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Bug Fixes

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SINCPT, SRFXPT

The routines SINCPT and SRFXPT were modified to not perform the quick test for non-intersection when observer-target distance is less than target's maximum radius.

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POOL Watchers

A new POOL entry point DWPOOL (delete watch from pool) has been added. This routine deletes a specified agent from all POOL data structures that associate kernel variables and agents.

Watcher overflow detection logic has been corrected in SWPOOL.

In the following routines, watched kernel variables are no longer considered to be buffered when a lookup of one of these variables fails:

   BODC2N (via changes to ZZBODTRN)
   BODDEF (via changes to ZZBODTRN)
   BODN2C (via changes to ZZBODTRN)
   SCPART
   SCTYPE
   SCTK01 (SC01 entry point)
   SCFM01 (SC01 entry point)
   SCTE01 (SC01 entry point)
   SCET01 (SC01 entry point)
   SCEC01 (SC01 entry point)
   TTRANS
   UNITIM

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Frame subsystem

TKFRAM has been updated to use DWPOOL when it deletes a frame specification from its internal buffer; this corrects a bug that caused the watcher system to overflow when a large number of TK frame specifications were used.

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Error handling

OUTMSG has been updated so that it correctly displays very long strings that have been substituted into the long error message.

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Non-printing Character Detection in Time System

The low-level time string parser routines called by STR2ET (str2et_c in CSPICE, cspice_str2et in Icy and Mice), UTC2ET (utc2et_c in CSPICE, cspice_utc2et in Icy and Mice), and TPARSE (tparse_c in CSPICE, cspice_tparse in Icy and Mice) were updated to detect non-printing characters with ASCII codes greater than 126.

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MKSPK

The program was updated to prevent signaling an error due to round off in the computed time step when creating Type 8 or Type 12 SPK files.

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CKBRIEF

Two bugs in CKRBIEF were fixed: hanging up when no value is provided after the ``-f'' option and displaying a warning message and an incomplete summary in case of an insufficient buffer space. In the latter case the program now displays an error message.

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Version 62 --- March 2008

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Environments

Top

New Environments

The SPICE Toolkit is now officially supported on this new environment:

   FORTRAN Toolkit:
 
      PC           Linux         Intel FORTRAN

Top

Complete List of Supported Environments

This is the complete list of environments on which the N0062 version of the SPICE Toolkit is supported:

   FORTRAN Toolkit:
 
      Mac/Intel    OS-X          Intel FORTRAN
      Mac/PowerPC  OS-X          Absoft FORTRAN
      Mac/PowerPC  OS-X          g77
      PC           CYGWIN        g77
      PC           Linux         g77
      PC           Linux         Intel FORTRAN
      PC           Windows       Compaq Visual (Digital) FORTRAN
      PC           Windows       Intel FORTRAN
      PC           Windows       Lahey FORTRAN 95
      Sun          Solaris       SUN FORTRAN
 
   CSPICE:
 
      Mac/Intel    OS-X          Apple C
      Mac/PowerPC  OS-X          Apple C
      PC           CYGWIN        gCC
      PC           Linux         gCC / 32bit
      PC           Linux         gCC / 64bit
      PC           Windows       MS Visual C
      Sun          Solaris       gCC / 32bit
      Sun          Solaris       gCC / 64bit
      Sun          Solaris       SUN C
 
   Icy:
 
      Mac/Intel    OS-X          Apple C / IDL 6.4 / 32bit
      Mac/PowerPC  OS-X          Apple C / IDL 6.4 / 32bit
      PC           Linux         gCC / IDL 6.4 / 32bit
      PC           Windows       MS Visual C / IDL 6.4 / 32bit
      Sun          Solaris       gCC / IDL 6.4 / 32bit
      Sun          Solaris       SUN C / IDL 6.4 / 32bit
 
   Mice:
 
      Mac/Intel    OS-X          Apple C / MATLAB 7.x / 32bit
      Mac/PowerPC  OS-X          Apple C / MATLAB 7.x / 32bit
      PC           Linux         gCC / MATLAB 7.x / 32bit
      PC           Windows       MS Visual C / MATLAB 7.x / 32bit

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Use of -m32 Option

The CSPICE library provided with the CSPICE, Icy, and Mice toolkits for PC / Linux / gCC / 32bit environment compiles with the -m32 option to produce 32bit code when recompiled on a 64bit PC.

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Lahey Memory Issue Related to File Opening/Closing

The Lahey memory issue related to file opening/closing described in the N0061 section of this document still persists in the N0062 version of the Toolkit.

Top

Scratch EK File Issue in Icy on PC/Windows

The scratch EK file issue in Icy on PC/Windows described in the N0061 section of this document still persists in the N0062 version of the Toolkit.

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Mice

The N0062 version offers the first official release of Mice, the ANSI based interface between the MATLAB environment, a product of Mathworks, Inc. (http://www.mathworks.com), and the CSPICE library. If you downloaded a Mice package, refer to ``mice.req'' document and to the Mice HTML documentation pointed to by ``doc/html/index.html'' for more details.

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SPICELIB/CSPICE/Icy/Mice

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New ``Surface Intercept'' routine SINCPT

Given an observer and a direction vector defining a ray, the new routine SINCPT (sincpt_c in CSPICE, cspice_sincpt in Icy and Mice) computes the surface intercept of the ray on a target body at a specified epoch, optionally corrected for light time and stellar aberration. This routine supersedes SRFXPT (srfxpt_c, cspice_srfxpt), which does not have an input argument for the target body-fixed frame name.

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New ``Illumination Angles'' routine ILUMIN

The new routine ILUMIN (ilumin_c in CSPICE, cspice_ilumin in Icy and Mice) finds the illumination angles (phase, solar incidence, and emission) at a specified surface point of a target body. This routine supersedes ILLUM (illum_c, cspice_illum), which doesn't have an input argument for the target body-fixed frame name.

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New ``Sub-observer Point'' routine SUBPNT

The new routine SUBPNT (subpnt_c in CSPICE, cspice_subpnt in Icy and Mice) computes the rectangular coordinates of the sub-observer point on a target body at a specified epoch, optionally corrected for light time and stellar aberration. This routine supersedes SUBPT (subpt_c, cspice_subpt), which does not have an input argument for the target body-fixed frame name.

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New ``Sub-solar Point'' Routine SUBSLR

The new routine SUBSLR (subslr_c in CSPICE, cspice_subslr in Icy and Mice) computes the rectangular coordinates of the sub-solar point on a target body at a specified epoch, optionally corrected for light time and stellar aberration. This routine supersedes SUBSOL (subsol_c, cspice_subsol), which does not have an input argument for the target body-fixed frame name.

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Improvements of Aberration Corrected Velocity in the SPK Subsystem

NAIF has upgraded the algorithms used by the SPICE Toolkit's SPK subsystem to improve the accuracy of certain velocity results returned by that subsystem. The new algorithms improve the accuracy of velocities that are corrected for light time alone, or both light time and stellar aberration. The new algorithms use the same non-relativistic models for aberration corrections as do the current SPK algorithms, but the new implementations of the velocity calculations are more accurate.

The changes improve the accuracy of certain derived quantities, including range rates and times of periapse or apoapse, when aberration corrections are used. These changes improve current SPICE computations as well as being necessary for implementation of the upcoming geometric event finding subsystem.

The changes do not affect the computation of aberration-corrected position vectors, nor do they affect uncorrected (``geometric'') states (position and velocity).

A few examples of the magnitudes of improvements afforded by the new algorithms are shown below. All velocities are inertially referenced.

--

Negative effects of the changes are

--

But take note: since computation of aberration-corrected states is usually a small fraction of the computational workload of SPICE-based applications, the effect on the speed of SPICE-based applications is very small, and in a majority of cases would likely not be discernible at all.

Also note, the effect on speed of an application that simply ``reads'' state vectors from an SPK file is nil since aberration corrections are not used for this purpose.

--

NAIF believes any possible negative consequences are outweighed by the benefits of improved accuracy.

Below we briefly describe the differences between the old and new aberration correction algorithms.

The previous SPK light time correction algorithms introduce errors by ignoring the rate of change of light time with respect to time. This occurs in two places:

--

The new light time algorithms correct both of these errors.

SPICE supports stellar aberration correction only when light time correction is used as well.

Previously, the velocity returned when light time and stellar aberration corrections were used is identical to that returned when only light time correction is used.

The new algorithm computes light time and stellar aberration-corrected velocity as the derivative with respect to time of light time and stellar aberration-corrected position.

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New SPK Routines

To support improvements to the SPK subsystem described above, three new SPK routines were added (described below). In most cases SPICE users would not call one of these routines, using the high-level APIs SPKEZR or SPKEZ instead. For the N0062 release these routines are available only in SPICELIB and CSPICE.

SPKACS: The new routine SPKACS (spkacs_c in CSPICE) returns the state (position and velocity) of a target body relative to an observer, optionally corrected for light time and stellar aberration, expressed relative to an inertial reference frame.

SPKAPS: Given the state and acceleration of an observer relative to the solar system barycenter, the new routine SPKAPS (spkaps_c in CSPICE) returns the state (position and velocity) of a target body relative to the observer, optionally corrected for light time and stellar aberration. All input and output vectors are expressed relative to an inertial reference frame.

SPKLTC: The new routine SPKLTC (spkltc_c in CSPICE) returns the state (position and velocity) of a target body relative to an observer, optionally corrected for light time, expressed relative to an inertial reference frame.

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New Binary PCK Coverage Routines PCKFRM and PCKCOV

The new PCK coverage determination routine PCKCOV (pckcov_c in CSPICE) provides an API with which an application can find the time period(s) during which a specified binary PCK file provides data for a specified reference frame. The coverage information is a set of disjoint time intervals returned in a SPICE ``window'' data structure.

The new PCK routine PCKFRM (pckfrm_c in CSPICE) provides an API via which an application can find the set of reference frames for which a specified binary PCK file contains data. The coverage information is returned in a SPICE ``set'' data structure.

For the N0062 release these routines are available only in SPICELIB and CSPICE.

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New Routine WNCARD

The new routine WNCARD (wncard_c in CSPICE, cspice_wncard in Icy) returns the cardinality -- number of intervals -- of a SPICE ``window'' data structure.

For the N0062 release this routine is available only in SPICELIB, CSPICE, and Icy.

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New Routine EDTERM

The new routine EDTERM computes a set of points on the umbral or penumbral terminator of a specified target body, where the target shape is modeled as an ellipsoid.

For the N0062 release this routine is available only in SPICELIB.

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SCLK Buffer Size Increase

The sizes of the internal buffers in the SCLK subsystem have been increased to allow SCLK kernels to include up to 9,999 partitions.

Top

TABs in Text Kernels

The low level routines called by the SPICE kernel loader routine FURNSH were modified to ignore TAB characters present in text kernels files on all supported environments.

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Built-in NAIF ID Code/Name Definitions

The following new built-in NAIF ID code/name definitions have been added to the Toolkit:

   Spacecraft:
 
           -18   LCROSS
           -29   NEXT
           -86   CH1
           -86   CHANDRAYAAN-1
          -131   KAGUYA
          -140   EPOXI
          -151   CHANDRA
          -187   SOLAR PROBE
 
   Satellites:
 
           636   AEGIR
           637   BEBHIONN
           638   BERGELMIR
           639   BESTLA
           640   FARBAUTI
           641   FENRIR
           642   FORNJOT
           643   HATI
           644   HYROKKIN
           645   KARI
           646   LOGE
           647   SKOLL
           648   SURTUR
           649   ANTHE
           650   JARNSAXA
           651   GREIP
           652   TARQEQ
 
           809   HALIMEDE
           810   PSAMATHE
           811   SAO
           812   LAOMEDEIA
           813   NESO

The following built-in NAIF ID code/name definitions for Jovian system satellites have been modified to conform to the current name/body mapping:

   Satellites:
 
           540   MNEME
           541   AOEDE
           542   THELXINOE
           543   ARCHE
           544   KALLICHORE
           545   HELIKE
           546   CARPO
           547   EUKELADE
           548   CYLLENE
           549   KORE

The following provisional default NAIF ID code/name definitions have been removed:

   Spacecraft:
 
          -172   SPACETECH-3 COMBINER
          -174   PLUTO-KUIPER EXPRESS
          -175   PLUTO-KUIPER EXPRESS SIMULATION
          -205   SPACETECH-3 COLLECTOR
 
   Satellites:
 
           514   1979J2
           515   1979J1
           516   1979J3
           610   1980S1
           611   1980S3
           612   1980S6
           613   1980S13
           614   1980S25
           615   1980S28
           616   1980S27
           617   1980S26
 
           706   1986U7
           707   1986U8
           708   1986U9
           709   1986U4
           710   1986U6
           711   1986U3
           712   1986U1
           713   1986U2
           714   1986U5
           715   1985U1
           718   1986U10
 
           901   1978P1

The spelling in the following built-in NAIF ID code/name definitions have been corrected:

   Satellites:
 
           MAGACLITE to MEGACLITE

The following built-in objects have been renamed:

   Spacecraft:
 
           STV-1 to STV51
           STV-2 to STV52
           STV-3 to STV53
 
   Satellites:
 
           ERRIAPO to ERRIAPUS

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Icy (IDL interface to CSPICE) Only

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New and Updated Interfaces

NAIF added the following interfaces to Icy for this release:

   cspice_getelm
   cspice_spkw10
   cspice_wncard
   cspice_subpnt
   cspice_subslr
   cspice_dafac
   cspice_dafdc
   cspice_dafec
   cspice_subpnt
   cspice_subslr
   cspice_sincpt

These Icy interfaces now process vectorized arguments:

   cspice_etcal
   cspice_furnsh
   cspice_unload

These Interfaces have been removed from Icy:

   cspice_spkw15
   cspice_spkw17

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Documentation

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Permutted Index for Icy and Mice

The permutted index documents have been added to the ASCII and HTML documentation sets provided with the Icy and Mice Toolkits.

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BRIEF User's Guide

The BRIEF User's Guide, brief.ug, was fully rewritten to describe new features added to the program and to provide examples illustrating all aspects of the program's functionality.

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Documentation on NAIF Web Server

The documentation provided in the generic SPICE, CSPICE, Icy and Mice Toolkits is now also available at this URL on the NAIF Web server:

   http://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/naif/documentation.html

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BRIEF

The BRIEF utility program was modified to:

--

The program's help and usage displays as well as the formats of the summary reports were improved. The internal buffers holding summary information were increased to allow summarizing SPK files or file sets containing up to 100,000 bodies.

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CKBRIEF

The CKBRIEF utility program was modified to:

--

The program's help and usage displays were improved. The internal buffers holding summary information were increased to allow summarizing CK files containing up to 100,000 segments.

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MKSPK

The capability to accept time tags given as ET seconds past J2000 was added to the program. The TIME_WRAPPER setup keyword must be set to the special value '# ETSECONDS' to make the program recognize and process such time tags.

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SUBPT Cookbook

The cookbook program SUBPT was updated to illustrate use of the new ``sub-observer point'' routine SUBPNT.

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Bug Fixes

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EV2LIN

Corrected error in the calculation of the C4 term due to typographic error in expression.

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HYPTOF

An error in the HYPTOF routine affecting cases of evaluating elements of a hyperbolic trajectory with a very large eccentricity with respect to a small body (low gravity) has been fixed.

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INELPL

The routine's specification and behavior have been updated so the routine now returns a meaningful result for the case of an ellipse consisting of a single point.

Also, in the degenerate case where the input ellipse is a line segment of positive length, and this segment intersects the plane, the number of intersection points is set to 1 rather than 2.

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RAXISA

Minor edit to the ANGLE declaration strictly identifying the constant as a double. This change eliminates an occasional compiler warning.

Top

SC01

The routine was fixed to correctly insert spaces between fields when the output field delimiter is blank.

Top

SRFXPT

The routine was corrected to no longer apply the light time improvement logic in near-miss cases when a geometric solution is requested via ABCORR.

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BRIEF

A number of bugs were fixed in the BRIEF utility program in the course of the modifications described above. The two most significant of these bugs were hanging up when no value was provided after ``-from'', ``-to'',``-at'', and ``-f'' options, and a logic expression error causing the program's crash on the Intel FORTRAN environments.

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CKBRIEF

The bug causing an unsolicited grouping display on some C environments was fixed.

Top

Header Updates

A number of formatting problems, typos, and errors in examples were fixed in the SPICE, CSPICE, and Icy headers.

Top

Version 61 --- December 2006

Top

Rules Regarding Use of SPICE Components

The rules regarding use of SPICE components have been updated to reflect the new ITAR clearance for the SPICE toolkit, documentation and data. Please see the RULES page of the NAIF website: http://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/naif/rules.html for details.

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Environments

Top

New Environments

The SPICE Toolkit is now officially supported on these new environments:

   FORTRAN Toolkit:
 
      Mac/Intel    OS-X          Intel FORTRAN
      PC           Windows       Intel FORTRAN
 
   CSPICE:
 
      Mac/Intel    OS-X          Apple C
      Sun          Solaris       gCC/64bit
 
   Icy:
 
      Mac/Intel    OS-X          Apple C / IDL 6.3

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Deprecated Environments

The SPICE Toolkit is no longer supported on these environments:

   FORTRAN Toolkit:
 
      HP           UX-10         HP FORTRAN
      Vax          VMS           Digital FORTRAN
 
   CSPICE:
 
      HP           UX-10         HP C

Top

Complete List of Supported Environments

This is the complete list of environments on which the N0061 version of the SPICE Toolkit is supported:

   FORTRAN Toolkit:
 
      Mac/Intel    OS-X          Intel FORTRAN
      Mac/PowerPC  OS-X          Absoft FORTRAN
      Mac/PowerPC  OS-X          g77
      PC           CYGWIN        g77
      PC           Linux         g77
      PC           Windows       Compaq Visual (Digital) FORTRAN
      PC           Windows       Intel FORTRAN
      PC           Windows       Lahey FORTRAN 95
      Sun          Solaris       SUN FORTRAN
 
   CSPICE:
 
      Mac/Intel    OS-X          Apple C
      Mac/PowerPC  OS-X          Apple C
      PC           CYGWIN        gCC
      PC           Linux         gCC
      PC           Linux         gCC/64bit
      PC           Windows       Microsoft Visual C
      Sun          Solaris       gCC
      Sun          Solaris       gCC/64bit
      Sun          Solaris       SUN C
 
   Icy:
 
      Mac/Intel    OS-X          Apple C / IDL 6.3
      Mac/PowerPC  OS-X          Apple C / IDL 6.3
      PC           Linux         gCC / IDL 6.3
      PC           Windows       Microsoft Visual C / IDL 6.3
      Sun          Solaris       gCC / IDL 6.3
      Sun          Solaris       SUN C / IDL 6.3

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Use of -fPIC/-KPIC Option

The CSPICE library provided with the CSPICE and Icy toolkits is now compiled with the -fPIC or -KPIC option resulting in position-independent code, suitable for dynamic linking all environments that support it.

Top

Lahey Memory Issue Related to File Opening/Closing

Users of Lahey FORTRAN under the Windows operating systems should be aware that the F95 compiler allocates a small amount of memory, in connection with the process of using file OPEN and INQUIRE statements, that it might not free at the end of the file manipulation process. Since the simple opening of a binary kernel file can involve multiple OPEN and INQUIRE statements, the result of this allocation is that if the user were to open many (e.g. 100 or more) kernel files, an application program could sequester memory that would not be freed as expected. A virtual memory error message such as "A work area cannot be reserved because of insufficient area" may result from this situation. This can adversely affect the stability of the Windows operating system, even after the user program is terminated.

We believe that this behavior affects all versions of SPICELIB, including the N61 version. We are working with Lahey to resolve this issue.

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Scratch EK File Issue in Icy on PC/Windows

An issue may exist when using EK scratch files from IDL under Microsoft Windows. The cspice_ekcls call may fail to delete the scratch file created by the cspice_ekops call. This file normally has a name style similar to tmp.Fxxxxx. You can manually delete the file only after you close the IDL application.

This problem does not affect use of the file or cause any known instability to Icy.

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Documentation

Starting with N0061 every SPICE toolkit package comes with a complete set of HTML documentation consisting of:

--

All HTML documents in this set are cross-hyperlinked -- every instance of an API name in Required Reading, index or other documents is linked to the API HTML page derived from its source code header; every reference to a Required Reading document in the API HTML pages, indexes and other documents is linked to the Required Reading's HTML page, and so on. In some cases HTML pages are also linked to the actual source code modules, specifically from the Permuted Index document and from the bottom of each of the each individual API pages.

The top level index file

   doc/html/index.html

provides a single entry point to all HTML documentation.

While the CSPICE and Icy set of individual API HTML pages contains a page for each of the public routines, the SPICELIB (Fortran) set does not provide HTML pages for about 30 routines that are different on different environments. NAIF omitted them in this Toolkit version due to some technical difficulties in assembling the Toolkit packages and will try to fix this situation in the next release of the Toolkit.

Also, the SPICELIB HTML documentation set does not include links to a small set of APIs that have names that are either common words (POS, FRAME, ROTATE, RETURN) or terms (J2000, B1950) commonly used in the SPICE documentation.

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New Applications

Top

MSOPCK

The MSOPCK program was added to the application set included in each SPICE toolkit. This program converts attitude data provided in a text file as UTC, SCLK, or ET-tagged quaternions, Euler angles, or matrices, optionally accompanied by angular velocities, into a type 1, 2, or 3 SPICE C-kernel.

Refer to the MSOPCK User's Guide, msopck.ug, for more information about the program.

Note: an earlier version of this program has been available in some mission-specific Toolkits and through the NAIF website. We recommend users replace that older version with this one.

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SPKDIFF

The SPKDIFF program was added to the application set included in each SPICE toolkit. This program computes differences between geometric states obtained from two SPK files and either displays these differences or shows statistics about them.

Refer to the SPKDIFF User's Guide, spkdiff.ug, for more information about the program.

Note: SPPKDIFF replaces a predecessor program named CMPSPK that had limited distribution.

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SPICELIB/CSPICE/Icy

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KCLEAR Routine

A call to KCLEAR unloads all files loaded via FURNSH and clears the kernel pool.

Calling KCLEAR at the end of an Icy-based IDL script ensures that kernels loaded during script execution won't contaminate results from Icy-based scripts run subsequently during the same IDL session.

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DAF Comment Area Routines

The former support library routines DAFAC, DAFDC, and DAFEC have been moved into SPICELIB. These routines provide comment area access for DAF-based files, such as SPK, CK, and binary PCK files. DAFAC appends to the contents of a DAF's comment area text provided in a buffer. DAFDC deletes all comments from the comment area. DAFEC extracts the contents of the comment area into a buffer.

These routines are available in SPICELIB and CSPICE; they are not yet supported in Icy.

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DAF-based Kernel Open Routines

The routines CKOPN, PCKOPN, and SPKOPN, which open new CK, binary PCK and SPK kernels respectively, now are able to reserve a caller-specified amount of space in the new file's comment area at the time of file creation. This allows faster comment addition when comments must be added after the kernel contains a large amount of data, since the data need not be shifted to make room in the comment area.

The calling sequences of these routines have not changed. The routines' input argument NCOMCH was previously disregarded; it now specifies the amount of comment area space to reserve.

This change applies to SPICELIB, CSPICE, and Icy.

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DAFONW Routine

The routine DAFONW, which opens a new DAF, now initializes the DAF comment area when comment area records are reserved. The comment records are null-padded as before, but now the first character of the comment area is initialized with the ``end-of-comments'' character. This provides a correctly initialized empty comment area that can be accessed by SPICE routines and utilities. Formerly this initialization had to be carried out by the calling program.

This change supports the capability of reserving space in the comment area now provided by the higher-level kernel opening routines CKOPN, PCKOPN, and SPKOPN.

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SPKW02, SPKW03, and SPKW05 Routines

The restriction that the input reference frame should be inertial has been removed from SPK Type 2, 3 and 5 writer routines SPKW02, SPKW03 and SPKW05. Any application that calls there routines, including the MKSPK program, can now create a type 2, 3, or 5 SPK file with data given with respect to a non-inertial frame.

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Built-in NAIF ID Code/Name Definitions

The following new built-in NAIF ID code/name definitions have been added to the Toolkit:

   Spacecraft:
 
           -61   JUNO
           -76   MSL
           -76   MARS SCIENCE LABORATORY
           -85   LRO
           -85   LUNAR RECON ORBITER
           -85   LUNAR RECONNAISSANCE ORBITER
          -212   STV-1
          -213   STV-2
          -214   STV-3
 
   Satellites:
 
           540   ARCHE
           541   EUKELADE
           546   HELIKE
           547   AOEDE
           548   HEGEMONE
           551   KALLICHORE
           553   CYLLENE
           560   CARPO
           561   MNEME
 
           635   DAPHNIS
 
           722   FRANCISCO
           723   MARGARET
           724   FERDINAND
           725   PERDITA
           726   MAB
           727   CUPID
 
           902   NIX
           903   HYDRA

The following provisional name/ID mappings for the Jovian system satellites were replaced or removed from the Toolkit:

    539         'HEGEMONE'              JXXXIX
    540         'MNEME'                 JXL
    541         'AOEDE'                 JXLI
    542         'THELXINOE'             JXLII
    543         'ARCHE'                 JXLIII
    544         'KALLICHORE'            JXLIV
    545         'HELIKE'                JXLV
    546         'CARPO'                 JXLVI
    547         'EUKELADE'              JXLVII
    548         'CYLLENE'               JXLVIII

The new mapping leaves the IDs 539, 542-545, 549, 550, 552, 554-559 unassigned.

The following name spelling correction has also been made:

           632   METHODE to METHONE

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CSPICE Only

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New Wrappers

The following interfaces to SPICE routines were added to CSPICE in this release:

   dafac_c        dafdc_c         dafec_c
   dafgda_c       dascls_c        dasopr_c
   kclear_c

Top

Icy (IDL interface to CSPICE) Only

Top

New Interfaces

NAIF added the following new Icy interfaces for this release:

   cspice_appndd  cspice_appndi   cspice_badkpv
   cspice_dafgda  cspice_dascls   cspice_dasopr
   cspice_inter   cspice_kclear   cspice_valid

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Bug Fixes

Top

CKE05

Several functional changes were made to the CK type 5 evaluator CKE05. These changes affect all CK type 5 subtypes EXCEPT subtype 1, which is used by the Mars Express, Rosetta, Venus Express, and SMART-1 missions. These changes are not expected to affect current SPICE users.

First change: the evaluator now assumes that input rate information, whether in the form of quaternion derivatives or angular velocity vectors, has units of radians/second. This makes the routine's interface consistent with SPICE conventions. This change affects subtypes 0, 2, and 3.

Second change: the evaluator no longer attempts to improve interpolation of quaternion derivatives by negating, if necessary, the derivatives provided in the input record. This places on C-kernel creators the burden of determining correct quaternion derivatives suitable for Hermite interpolation. This decision was made because the selection functionality cannot be implemented in a completely reliable way for the case where the derivatives have very small magnitude (which in practice is not a rare case). Quaternions themselves still WILL be negated if necessary for correct Hermite interpolation. This change affects subtypes 0 and 2.

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ET2LST

The bug for bodies with retrograde rotation causing the local time to flow backwards has been fixed. The local time for all types of bodies now progresses as expected -- midnight, increasing AM hours, noon, increasing PM hours, next midnight, and so on.

Top

UNLOAD

The bug causing incorrect meta-kernel unloading was fixed. Formerly some sequences of FURNSH and UNLOAD calls could cause UNLOAD to become unable to unload meta-kernels correctly: in some cases, kernels referenced by the meta-kernels were not unloaded when they should have been.

Top

STR2ET

Two bugs were fixed. The first bug caused the routine to return incorrect results in some cases on calls following calls for which a time zone was specified. The second bug caused the routine to generate a memory violation exception for blank input strings on some environments (HP).

Top

SURFPT

The ray's surface intercept is now always set to the ray's vertex when the vertex is on the ellipsoid's surface. Formerly, for inward-pointing direction vectors, the ray's point of egress from the ellipsoid was selected as the intercept.

The new functionality is consistent with the routine's documentation, which claims that the intercept closest to the ray's vertex is selected.

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CHRONOS

Two bugs were fixed. The first bug caused slightly incorrect computation of the mean local second duration, which could have resulted in a leap in the LST SOL counting. For landed Martian missions this bug would have exhibited itself after approximately SOL 2100. The second bug prohibited conversion from and to LST for local times a few seconds before midnight, in the 23:59:00-23:59:59 range.

The important side effect of correcting the first bug is that due to the fact that LST is returned with integer local seconds the result of any conversion from and to LST differs slightly -- by less that 1 second -- from the same conversion done by the previous versions of the program.

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Icy

The bug causing a cascade of 'zzerror_c' strings prefixed to error strings has been fixed.

Top

MKSPK

The bug causing the 8th input equinoctial element (DMPN/DT) to be assigned to the 8th (DMPN/DT) and 9th (DNOD/DT) equinoctial elements stored in the output SPK file when the first six equinoctial elements were derived from input states or classical elements was fixed.

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Version 60 --- December 2005

The sole purpose of this version is to fix the bug described below. In all other aspects the N0060 Toolkit is the same as the N0059 Toolkit.

Top

Bug Fixes

Top

Access to High Precision Binary Earth PCK

On December 13, 2005, a significant bug was found in the Fortran, C, and IDL N0059 SPICE Toolkits: this bug results in corruption of data read from high precision binary earth PCK files.

A second, probably rarely encountered, effect of the bug is that data will be corrupted when read directly from routine TISBOD (tisbod_c in CSPICE, cspice_tisbod in Icy), in cases where the input reference frame name doesn't match the frame associated with the data in the source PCK.

This bug has been fixed in the N0060 Toolkit.

Top

Version 59 --- November 2005

Top

Rules Regarding Use of SPICE Components

The rules regarding use of SPICE components, already very minimal, have been further relaxed and better articulated. Please see the RULES page of the NAIF website: http://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/naif/rules.html for details.

Top

Environments

Top

New Environments

The SPICE Toolkit is now officially supported on Sun/Solaris/64bit gcc environment.

Top

Supported Environments

This is the complete list of environments on which the N0059 version of the SPICE Toolkit is supported:

   FORTRAN Toolkit:
 
      HP         UX-10         HP FORTRAN
      Macintosh  OS-X          Absoft FORTRAN
      Macintosh  OS-X          g77
      PC         CYGWIN        g77
      PC         Linux         g77
      PC         Windows       Compaq Visual (Digital) FORTRAN
      PC         Windows       Lahey FORTRAN 95
      Sun        Solaris       SUN FORTRAN
      Vax        VMS           Digital FORTRAN
 
   CSPICE:
 
      HP         UX            HP C
      Macintosh  OS-X          Apple C
      PC         CYGWIN        gCC
      PC         Linux         gCC
      PC         Windows       Microsoft Visual C
      Sun        Solaris       SUN C
      Sun        Solaris       gCC
      Sun        Solaris       gCC/64bit
 
   Icy:
 
      Macintosh  OS-X          Apple C / IDL 6.2
      PC         Linux         gCC / IDL 6.2
      PC         Windows       Microsoft Visual C / IDL 6.2
      Sun        Solaris       SUN C / IDL 6.2
      Sun        Solaris       gCC / IDL 6.2

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Optimization for C/Icy environments

Optimization -O2 or equivalent is now used to compile CSPICE for all supported C and Icy environments.

Top

Lahey Memory Issue Related to File Opening/Closing

We believe that this behavior affects all versions of SPICELIB, including the soon to be released N59 version. We are working with Lahey to resolve this issue.

Top

Scratch EK File Issue in Icy on PC/Windows

This problem does not affect use of the file or cause any known instability to Icy.

Top

SPICELIB/CSPICE/Icy

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Loading of Non-Native Text Kernels Files

Starting with this version of the toolkit, the CSPICE and Icy text kernel loaders, furnsh_c/cspice_furnsh and ldpool_c/cspice_ldpool, can read and parse non-native text files. Unfortunately this capability cannot be provided in FORTRAN instances of the Toolkit.

Please be aware the CSPICE text file reader, rdtext_c, does not possess the capability to read non-native text files.

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Additional Testing

A large amount of additional testing of existing SPICE interfaces and capabilities was performed during preparation of this version of the toolkit. This testing uncovered a small number of bugs, all of which have been fixed for this release (see Section ``Bug Fixes'' below.)

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Deprecation of BODVAR in favor of BODVRD and BODVCD

Routine BODVAR has been deprecated due to deficiency of its interface and a possibility that it may cause memory violation when used to retrieve data for incorrectly formed text kernel keywords. Routines BODVCD and BODVRD should be used instead of it.

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``In Place'' Routines

A number of routines parallel to existing interfaces but utilizing the same argument for both input and output were added to SPICELIB (FORTRAN Toolkit). These routines are:

   cyacip.for
   cyadip.for
   cyaiip.for
   vhatip.for
   vsclip.for
   xpsgip.for

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SPK Segment Buffer Increase

The SPK segment buffer size was increased to 30,000 to allow more efficient read access to SPK files containing a large number of segments, such as SPK files produced by ESA's Mars Express project.

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EK Buffer Increased

Buffers facilitating EK access have been increased to provide more efficient read access to EK files containing a large numbers of records, such as EK files produced by the Cassini project.

Top

Built-in NAIF ID Code/Name Definitions

The following new built-in NAIF ID code/name definitions have been added to the Toolkit:

   Spacecraft:
 
           -98   NEW HORIZONS
          -248   VENUS EXPRESS, VEX
          -500   RSAT, SELENE Relay Satellite, SELENE Rstar, Rstar
          -502   VSAT, SELENE VLBI Radio Satellite,
                 SELENE VRAD Satellite, SELENE Vstar
 
   Asteroids:
 
       2025143   ITOKAWA
 
   Satellites:
 
           539   HEGEMONE
           540   MNEME
           541   AOEDE
           542   THELXINOE
           543   ARCHE
           544   KALLICHORE
           545   HELIKE
           546   CARPO
           547   EUKELADE
           548   CYLLENE
           631   NARVI
           632   METHODE
           633   PALLENE
           634   POLYDEUCES
 
   Ground Stations:
 
        399064   DSS-64

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Documentation

The PCK Required Reading document has been revised.

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CSPICE

Top

New Wrappers

The following interfaces to SPICE routines were added to CSPICE in this release:

   bodvcd_c.c
   qdq2av_c.c
   qxq_c.c
   srfrec_c.c

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Icy (Interactive Data Language interface to CSPICE)

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Vectorization

NAIF modified the function of several Icy routines to support vectorized variables (in the IDL sense) as input and output.

   cspice_illum    cspice_insrtd   cspice_insrti   cspice_oscelt
   cspice_sce2c    cspice_srfrec   cspice_srfxpt   cspice_subpt
   cspice_removd   cspice_removi

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New interfaces

NAIF added the following new Icy interfaces for this release:

   cspice_bodvcd   cspice_diff     cspice_insrtd   cspice_insrti
   cspice_qdq2av   cspice_qxq      cspice_removd   cspice_removi
   cspice_sdiff    cspice_set      cspice_srfrec   cspice_union

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Bug Fixes

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Non-standard Use of Duplicate Arguments in FORTRAN

A large number of SPICELIB routines has been revised to eliminate non-standard use of duplicate arguments in calls to other routines. Though this use did not pose any problems or cause any errors in the earlier Toolkit versions, it prevented use of optimization on some environments. With these changes optimization is now used in building all CSPICE and Icy Toolkits.

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NEARPT

A bug related to the scale of transverse component of error vector was corrected for the exterior point case.

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ET2LST

The treatment of planetographic longitude has been updated to be consistent with the SPICE planetographic / rectangular coordinate conversion routines. The effect of this change is that the default sense of positive longitude for the moon is now east; also, the default sense of positive planetographic longitude now may be overridden for any body.

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GETFOV

A bug causing incorrect computation of the boundary vectors for a rectangular FOV specified using the angular extents method has been fixed. In the previous versions for cases when the reference vector was provided as a non-unit vector and/or was non-perpendicular to the specified boresight the boundary vectors returned by the routine were computed incorrectly.

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CKW03

A check verifying that the start time of the first interval is the same as the time of the first pointing instance has been added.

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INEDPL

Error detection for the case of invalid input plane was added.

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INSRTC

The routine was changed in such way that when the item to be inserted would, after truncation to the set's string length, match an item already in the set, no insertion is performed. Previously the truncated string was inserted, corrupting the set.

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String Parsing Routines

Routines lparse.for, lparsm.for, and lparss.for were modified to avoid out-of-range substring bounds conditions.

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Version 58 --- January 2005

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Environments

The SPICE Toolkit is now officially supported on PC/CYGWIN/g77 and PC/CYGWIN/gCC environments and no longer supported on SGI and DEC Alpha computers.

This is the complete list of environments on which the N0058 version of the SPICE Toolkit is supported:

   FORTRAN Toolkit:
 
      HP         UX            HP FORTRAN
      Macintosh  OS-X          Absoft FORTRAN
      Macintosh  OS-X          g77
      PC         CYGWIN        g77
      PC         Linux         g77
      PC         Windows       Compaq Visual (Digital) FORTRAN
      PC         Windows       Lahey FORTRAN 95
      Sun        Solaris       SUN FORTRAN
      Vax        VMS           Digital FORTRAN
 
   CSPICE:
 
      HP         UX            HP C
      Macintosh  OS-X          Apple C
      PC         CYGWIN        gCC
      PC         Linux         gCC
      PC         Windows       Microsoft Visual C
      Sun        Solaris       SUN C
      Sun        Solaris       gCC
 
   Icy:
 
      Macintosh  OS-X          Apple C / IDL 6.1
      PC         Linux         gCC / IDL 6.1
      PC         Windows       Microsoft Visual C / IDL 6.1
      Sun        Solaris       SUN C / IDL 6.1
      Sun        Solaris       gCC / IDL 6.1

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SPICELIB/CSPICE/Icy

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Parameterized Dynamic Frames

The SPICE frame system now supports parameterized dynamic frames: frames for which orientation is based on dynamic directions computed using SPICE kernel data (SPKs, CK, PCKs), on mathematical models implemented in SPICE routines, or on formulas defined in frame kernels. Parameterized dynamic frames are grouped into ``families'' according to the method by which they're defined.

Currently supported dynamic frame families are:

--

Currently ``of date'' frames are supported only for the earth.

The Frames Required Reading documents the new capability and contains numerous examples of dynamic frame kernel definitions.

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CK/SPK Coverage Summary Routines

The new CK and SPK coverage determination routines CKCOV and SPKCOV provide an API via which an application can find the time periods for which a specified CK or SPK file provides data for, respectively, an instrument or body of interest. The coverage information is a set of disjoint time intervals returned in a SPICE ``window'' data structure.

The new CK and SPK routines CKOBJ and SPKOBJ provide an API via which an application can find the set of instruments or bodies for which, respectively, a specified CK or SPK file contains data. The coverage information is returned in a SPICE ``set'' data structure.

These new APIs are supported by SPICELIB, CSPICE, and Icy.

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Planetographic Coordinate Conversion Routines

The new planetographic coordinate conversion routines RECPGR and PGRREC support conversion between rectangular and planetographic coordinates. The planetographic Jacobian matrix routines DRDPGR and DPGRDR provide the derivative matrices for these transformations (used for coordinate transformations of velocities).

These new APIs are supported by SPICELIB, CSPICE, and Icy.

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``L-sub-S'' Solar Longitude Routine

The new routine LSPCN computes the planetocentric longitude of the sun (often called ``L-sub-S'' or ``Ls'') for a specified body and time. This quantity is typically used as an approximate ``time of year'' indicator.

The new API is supported by SPICELIB, CSPICE, and Icy.

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Built-in NAIF ID Code/Name Definitions

The following new built-in NAIF ID code/name definitions have been added to the Toolkit:

   Spacecraft:
 
           -84         PHOENIX
          -130         HAYABUSA
          -131         SELENE
          -203         DAWN
          -238         SMART-1, S1, SM1, SMART1
          -486         HERSCHEL
          -489         PLANCK
 
   Comets:
 
       1000012         CHURYUMOV-GERASIMENKO
                       67P/CHURYUMOV-GERASIMENKO (1969 R1)
 
   Stations:
 
        399049         DSS-49
        399055         DSS-55
        398989         NOTO

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Documentation

FRAMES.REQ has been re-structured and augmented with an extensive description and examples of the new parameterized dynamic frames family.

Top

CSPICE

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New Wrappers

The following new miscellaneous interfaces to SPICE routines were added to CSPICE in this release:

   bods2c_c.c      dafopw_c.c      dafps_c.c       dafrs_c.c

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Icy (Interactive Data Language interface to CSPICE)

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Vectorization

NAIF modified the function of several Icy routines to support vectorized variables (in the IDL sense) as input and output.

   cspice_cylrec   cspice_deltet   cspice_et2lst   cspice_et2utc
   cspice_georec   cspice_latrec   cspice_pxform   cspice_pgrrec
   cspice_radrec   cspice_reccyl   cspice_recgeo   cspice_reclat
   cspice_recpgr   cspice_recrad   cspice_recsph   cspice_scdecd
   cspice_scencd   cspice_scs2e    cspice_sphrec   cspice_spkezr
   cspice_spkpos   cspice_str2et   cspice_sxform   cspice_timout

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Windows

Icy now includes interfaces to the full set of CSPICE window routines.

   cspice_wnelmd   cspice_wnincd   cspice_wnreld   cspice_wncomd
   cspice_wncond   cspice_wndifd   cspice_wnexpd   cspice_wnextd
   cspice_wnfetd   cspice_wnfild   cspice_wnfltd   cspice_wninsd
   cspice_wnintd   cspice_wnsumd   cspice_wnunid   cspice_wnvald

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Other new interfaces

The following new miscellaneous interfaces to SPICE routines were added to Icy in this release:

   cspice_bods2c   cspice_card     cspice_celli    cspice_celld
   cspice_dafopw   cspice_dafrs    cspice_deltet   cspice_et2lst
   cspice_pgrrec   cspice_recpgr   cspice_scard    cspice_size
   cspice_spkcov   cspice_spkobj   cspice_ssize

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Bug Fixes

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MKSPK Processing of TLE

A MKSPK bug causing the program to process improperly formatted TLE files without signaling an error and producing output SPK containing bad data was fixed.

Top

MKSPK Adding Comments When Appending to Existing SPK

A MKSPK bug causing the program, in some rare circumstances, to signal an error when adding comments to an existing SPK file was fixed.

Top

Icy/cspice_getfov

A bug that caused the interface to fail to release allocated memory when the FRAMEMISSING error signaled was fixed.

Top

DVPOOL/dvpool_c/cspice_dvpool

A bug causing the DVPOOL routine to not delete a specified kernel pool variable in some cases was fixed.

Top

CSPICE/kdata_c Function

A number of typos in the example provided in the header of the routine were corrected.

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FRINFO/frinfo_c/cspice_frinfo

A bug causing the FRINFO routine to treat any frame with a negative ID code and a frame definition not provided in the kernel pool as a CK-based frame was fixed. Now, instead of returning ``manufactured'' attributes of a CK-based frame, the routine will generate an error for such inputs.

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Version 57 --- March 2004

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Environments

The N0057 version of the SPICE Toolkit is supported on the same environments as version N0056.

Top

Icy

The N0057 version offers the first official release of Icy, the interface to the CSPICE library from Interactive Data Language (IDL), a product of Research Systems, Inc. (RSI, http://www.rsi.com). If Icy was provided with this package, refer to ``icy.req'' document and to the Icy HTML documentation pointed to by ``doc/html/index.html'' for more details.

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SPICELIB/CSPICE

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SRFXPT

This new routine computes the surface intercept point of a specified ray on a target body at a specified epoch, optionally corrected for light time and stellar aberration. Its purpose is the same as for the SPICE routine SURFPT but unlike SURFPT is provides a much more flexible interface and computes geometry adjusted for light time and stellar aberration to the surface point rather than to the center of the target body. Therefore for most cases this routine makes SURFPT obsolete. Currently SRFXPT supports only the ellipsoid shape for target bodies but in the future it may be extended to support digital terrain models.

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Support for Satellite IDs in the Range 10000-99999

NAIF PCK data access routines have been modified to recognize satellites with IDs in the 10000-99999 range.

Top

Detection of Non-native Text Files

The SPICE data loading mechanism was extended to detect and prohibit loading text kernel files containing lines terminated with EOF character(s) non-native to the platform on which the Toolkit was compiled. If a non-native EOL terminator is detected in the first 132 characters of a text kernel, the execution is stopped and an error message is displayed. This feature does not work with files that are smaller that 132 bytes or have the first line longer that 132 characters.

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Documentation

The Toolkit may now optionally include documentation in HTML format. It is provided in the ``doc/html'' subdirectory and is pointed to by the top level index file

   doc/html/index.html

The headers of a few additional most often used routines have been revised to correct technical errors and grammar and/or spelling, improve clarity, and improve examples.

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Built-in NAIF ID Code/Name Definitions

The following new built-in NAIF ID code/name definitions have been added to the Toolkit:

   Spacecraft:
 
           -79         SPITZER
 
   Asteroids:
 
           2000216     KLEOPATRA

Top

INSPEKT

INSPEKT was updated to generate comma-delimited reports. This output format can be set using the ``SET FORMAT DELIMITED ...'' command. See INSPEKT on-line help for more details.

Top

TOBIN

TOBIN was modified to detect and prohibit processing input transfer files containing lines terminated with EOF character(s) non-native to the platform on which the Toolkit was compiled.

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Version 56 --- August 2003

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Environments

The N0056 version of the SPICE Toolkit is supported on the same environments as version N0055 except the following ``Classic'' Mac environments:

   Macintosh  MacOS9        Absoft FORTRAN
   Macintosh  MacOS9        Metrowerks Codewarrior C

Contact NAIF if you wish to obtain the Toolkit for these two deprecated environments.

Top

SPICELIB/CSPICE

Top

Documentation

The headers of 20+ of the most often used routines have been revised for one or more of the following reasons:

--

Top

Built-in NAIF ID Code/Name Definitions

The following new built-in NAIF ID code/name definitions have been added to the Toolkit:

   Spacecraft:
 
           -74         MRO
           -74         MARS RECON ORBITER
           -130        MUSES-C
           -142        TERRA
           -154        AQUA
           -159        EUROPA ORBITER
           -172        SPACETECH-3 COMBINER
           -188        MUSES-B
           -190        SIM
           -198        INTEGRAL
           -205        SPACETECH-3 COLLECTOR
           -234        STEREO AHEAD
           -235        STEREO BEHIND
           -253        OPPORTUNITY
           -254        SPIRIT
 
   Tracking Stations:
 
           398990      NEW NORCIA
 
   Jovian satellites:
 
           528         AUTONOE
           529         THYONE
           530         HERMIPPE
           531         AITNE
           532         EURYDOME
           533         EUANTHE
           534         EUPORIE
           535         ORTHOSIE
           536         SPONDE
           537         KALE
           538         PASITHEE
 
   Saturnian satellites:
 
           619         YMIR
           620         PAALIAQ
           621         TARVOS
           622         IJIRAQ
           623         SUTTUNG
           624         KIVIUQ
           625         MUNDILFARI
           626         ALBIORIX
           627         SKADI
           628         ERRIAPO
           629         SIARNAQ
           630         THRYM
 
   Uranian satellites:
 
           718         PROSPERO
           719         SETEBOS
           720         STEPHANO
           721         TRINCULO

Top

CHRONOS

CHRONOS utility program has been modified to allow loading kernel files using FURNSH kernel pool keywords and to accept all setup information from the command line.

Top

Bug Fixes

Top

Reading Files with MAC-OSX Absoft FORTRAN Toolkit

Low level read routines were fixed to make sure that the OSX Absoft FORTRAN SPICE toolkit can read files not owned by the user.

Top

DAS Scratch Files

DASCLS routine has been modified to call the routine flushing DAS buffers before closing scratch DAS files. Failing to free the buffers caused write errors on HP/FORTRAN systems.

Top

Argument Checking in CSPICE Error Handling Functions

The errprt_c, errdev_c, and erract_c functions were updated to diagnose invalid operation keyword input.

Top

Version 55 --- March 2003

Top

Environments

The N0055 version of the SPICE Toolkit is supported on the same environments as version N0054.

Top

SPICELIB

Top

SPKW01

SPK type 1 writer routine has been added.

Top

DASCLS

Scratch files no longer have their buffered portions flushed and are no longer segregated before before being closed. This change speeds up the close operation.

Top

SPKBSR

Segment buffer size was increased from 2000 to 10000 to improve efficiency when handling SPK files with large number of segments.

Top

Kernel POOL

The buffer that stores distinct numeric data items from the text kernel files was increased. The new buffer size is 20000, which is the maximum total number of values for all numeric scalar and array pool variables together.

Top

Type 1 SCLK

The buffer that stores Type 1 SCLK coefficients was increased. The new buffer size is 10000.

Top

CSPICE

Top

New CSPICE wrappers

Wrappers dasac_c and dasec_c have been added to CSPICE. These support DAS file comment area access.

Top

Bug Fixes

Top

Built-in NAIF ID Code/Name Definitions

The following built-in NAIF ID code/name definitions have been corrected to match official MER name-ID mapping:

          -253     was MER-A, now MER-1
          -254     was MER-B, now MER-2

MER-A and MER-B names are no longer supported by the Toolkit.

Top

DASCUD

DASCUD has been fixed so that it writes a new, empty cluster directory record at the correct location. This corrects an error introduced by a bug fix in N0054.

Top

OSCELT

OSCELT has been fixed so that it computes the argument of periapse correctly when the inclination is zero or 180 degrees. The mean anomaly computation has been corrected so that it works for circular and near-circular orbits. The computation of inclination has been changed to use ATAN2 for improved accuracy. Code that could generate arithmetic exceptions was corrected. Several new error checks have been added.

Top

CKE05

Angular velocity computations for subtypes 0 and 1 have been changed to make them compatible with those used by the MEX/Rosetta attitude file interpolation algorithms.

Top

CKBRIEF

CKBRIEF has been updated to retrieve and display interpolation interval information from Type 2 CK files correctly in all cases.

Top

Version 54 --- December 2002

Top

Mailing Lists

NAIF has created 2 mailing lists, ``Spice_announce''

   http://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/mailman/listinfo/spice_announce

and ``Spice_discussion''

   http://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/mailman/listinfo/spice_discussion

``Spice_announce'' is intended to provide notification of important developments such as a new toolkit release. Posting will generally be limited to members of the NAIF team. If you feel you have an important announcement that would be suitable for this list, you may send email to the list, but it will be reviewed by the NAIF team before dissemination.

``Spice_discussion'' is meant to provide a forum for discussion among SPICE users. Posting on this list is encouraged, however we also encourage you to limit mail traffic to the entire list. Extended discussions are often best carried out with a limited distribution list.

Both lists require registration, allow access to an archive of prior postings and allow the user to choose whether to receive individual postings or a daily digest.

Top

Environments

The N0054 version of the SPICE Toolkit is supported on the same environments as version N0053.

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COOKBOOK Programs

FORTRAN and C versions of the COOKBOOK programs have been made more consistent in implementation and behavior. User's Guide documents for COOKBOOK programs have been updated and are now delivered with both FORTRAN and C toolkits. The FSTSPK COOKBOOK program has been deprecated and is no longer delivered.

Top

New Built-in NAIF ID Code/Name Definitions

The following new built-in NAIF ID code/name definitions have been added to the toolkit:

   Spacecraft:
 
          -226     ROSETTA
 
   Jovian satellites:
 
           517     CALLIRRHOE
           518     THEMISTO
           519     MAGACLITE
           520     TAYGETE
           521     CHALDENE
           522     HARPALYKE
           523     KALYKE
           524     IOCASTE
           525     ERINOME
           526     ISONOE
           527     PRAXIDIKE

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Documentation

User's Guide documents for TOBIN, TOXFR and VERSION utility programs have been added to the toolkit documentation.

Top

Bug Fixes

Top

Built-in Body-Fixed Frame for Pan

Definition of the built-in body-fixed frame for PAN (IAU_PAN) has been updated to point to the correct PCK values used to compute its rotation. In the previous version of the toolkit it was pointing to PANDORA's rotation constants.

Top

Surface Intercept Routine

The surface intercept routine SURFPT/surfpt_c has been re-implemented to reduce loss of precision.

Top

DAS Writer Routines

DAS utility routine DASCUD has been fixed to ensure that DAS file structure is correct when files are closed without data segregation. Previously it was possible for unsegregated files to have an invalid final forward directory pointer. Note: this problem could not occur in E-kernels created by SPICE utility programs or using the SPICE EK API routines.

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CSPICE Cell Implementation

The CELLINIT macro has been updated so that it doesn't modify data added to character cells prior to cell initialization. This enables population of uninitialized character cells via macro calls.

Top

Body Name to Associated Frame Conversion Routine

The routine CNMFRM retrieving the reference frame name for a specified body name has been fixed so a TK frame specified by name and designated as an object's preferred frame via kernel pool assignments is found, and so that the correct name of this frame is returned.

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CHRONOS

CHRONOS has been updated to make sure that the iterative search for the nearest local midnight converges in all cases. It has also been updated to use the maximum system allowed file name length on VAX and DEC Alpha environments.

Top

Version 53 --- September 2002

Top

Environments

The N0053 version of the SPICE Toolkit is supported in the following environments:

   PC         Linux         g77
   PC         Windows       Compaq Visual (Digital) FORTRAN
   PC         Windows       Lahey FORTRAN 95
   PC         Linux         gCC
   PC         Windows       Microsoft Visual C++
   Sun        Solaris       FORTRAN
   Sun        Solaris       Native C
   Sun        Solaris       gCC
   HP         UX            HP FORTRAN
   HP         UX            HP C
   Macintosh  MacOS         Absoft FORTRAN
   Macintosh  MacOS         Metrowerks Codewarrior C
   Macintosh  OS-X          g77
   Macintosh  OS-X          Absoft FORTRAN
   Macintosh  OS-X          Apple C
   SGI        IRIX          N32/O32 FORTRAN
   SGI        IRIX          MIPS C (N32/O32 ABIs)
   DEC Alpha  Digital Unix  Digital FORTRAN
   DEC Alpha  Digital Unix  Digital C
   Vax        VMS           Digital FORTRAN

The PC/Linux/g77 version previously supported the alternative ``fort77'' compiler. This is no longer the case. Contact NAIF if you need support for this compiler.

The Macintosh OS-X environments are new.

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CSPICE

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New CSPICE wrappers for cell, set, and windows routines

The complete set of C wrappers duplicating cell, sets, and windows capabilities existing in FORTRAN SPICE has been added to CSPICE.

Top

New CSPICE wrappers for sorting and searching routines

The following new CSPICE wrappers implementing sorting and searching capabilities have been added:

   bscho*_c.c
   bsrch*_c.c
   esrchc_c.c
   isordv_c.c
   isrch*_c.c
   lstle*_c.c
   lstlt*_c.c
   order*_c.c
   reord*_c.c
   shell*_c.c

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New CSPICE wrappers for string manipulation and parsing routines

The following new CSPICE wrappers for string manipulation and parsing capabilities have been added:

   cpos*_c.c
   pos*_c.c
   ncpos*_c.c
   kxtrct_c.c
   lpars*_c.c
   lx4*_c.c
   lxqstr_c.c
   repm*_c.c

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SPICELIB

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SPK Type 18

A new SPK type (Type 18) has been added. This incorporates ESA/ESOC model for a spacecraft ephemeris.

Top

CK Type 5

A new CK type (Type 5) has been added. This incorporates ESA/ESOC model for a spacecraft attitude data.

Top

BRIEF

BRIEF utility has been updated to allow summarizing SPKs containing ephemerides for up to 20,000 distinct bodies.

Top

COOKBOOK

COOKBOOK programs have been updated to use the highest level routines currently available in SPICE -- FURNSH, SUBPT, etc.

Top

Bug Fixes

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ID-to-name Translation

SPICE's ID-to-name mapping subsystem has been updated to provide consistent behavior across all of its interfaces. It now correctly processes duplicate ID-to-name mapping assignments provided via text kernel files. Refer to the NAIF_IDS Required Reading for more details.

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Built-in Body-Fixed Frames

Missing body-fixed frames -- IAU_PAN, IAU_GASPRA, IAU_IDA, and IAU_EROS -- have been added to the built-in frame set.

Top

Binary architecture consistency check at run-time

Binary file format consistency check has been implemented at run time to verify that the toolkit prepared specifically for a platform with one binary file format has not been compiled/used on a platform with another binary file format.

Top

Long/truncated lines in text kernel files

The text kernel file reader has been modified to correctly process truncated string value assignments.

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VMS Read-Only Access File Open Failure

A bug in the DAF system preventing users on VMS systems from loading SPK, CK and binary PCK files with the read-only attribute(*) has been fixed.

Top

Version 52 --- January 2002

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Environments

The N0052 version of the SPICE Toolkit is supported on the following environments:

   PC         Linux         G77
   PC         Windows       Compaq Visual (Digital) Fortran
   PC         Windows       Lahey Fortran 95
   PC         Linux         GCC
   PC         Windows       Microsoft Visual C++
   Sun        Solaris       Fortran
   Sun        Solaris       Native C
   Sun        Solaris       GCC
   HP         UX            HP Fortran
   HP         UX            HP C
   Macintosh  MacOS         Absoft Fortran
   Macintosh  MacOS         Metrowerks Codewarrior C
   SGI        IRIX          N32/O32 Fortran
   SGI        IRIX          MIPS C (N32/O32 ABIs)
   DEC Alpha  Digital Unix  Digital Fortran
   DEC Alpha  Digital Unix  Digital C
   Vax        VMS           Digital Fortran

The N0052 version of the SPICE Toolkit is no longer supported on the following environments:

   PC         Windows       Lahey F77L3
   PC         Windows       Microsoft Powerstation Fortran 1.x
   PC         Windows       Microsoft Powerstation Fortran 4.x
   Sun        SunOS         Fortran
   Macintosh  MacOS         Language Systems Fortran
   Next       Nextstep      Absoft Fortran
   Next       Nextstep      GCC

Contact NAIF if you wish to obtain the Toolkit for one or more of these deprecated environments.

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SPICELIB

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Run-Time Binary File Format Translation

The most popular supported systems (including Macintosh, PC, and UNIX platforms) are now capable of accessing data in binary SPICE kernel files from other platforms directly without using transfer format. But note that binary files from other platforms are only available for read access. See the Convert User's Guide for specifics and details.

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Open File Limit Increase

The sum of loaded SPK, CK, and binary PCK files, all of which are implemented using the DAF file architecture, may now reach 1000. Previous versions of the toolkit restricted the number of loaded DAFs to 20. But caution: loading large numbers of files may impact system performance.

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SPK aberration corrections

SPK readers can now perform aberration corrections for transmitted, as well as received, radiation. This feature makes it simple to compute the direction in which radiation must be emitted in order to reach a specified target.

The headers of the SPK readers have been expanded to explain aberration corrections in greater detail.

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Instrument Kernel Support

GETFOV was extended to compute boundary corners from FOV definitions in the kernel pool utilizing the new ANGLES specification. See GETFOV's or getfov_c's header for details.

Top

Kernel POOL

The buffers that store text kernel data were increased. The new maximums are:

   Maximum Number of Variables                     5003
   Maximum Number of Distinct Numeric Data Items  10000 (*)
   Maximum Number of Character Strings             4000 (**)

(*) This is the maximum total number of values for all numeric scalar and array pool variables together. (**) This is the maximum total number of values for all character scalar and array pool variables together.

These changes allow the kernel pool to hold substantially more data than previous versions of the SPICE toolkit, which became necessary due to the increasing use of such SPICE components as IK and FK utilizing the POOL as the data repository and access mechanism.

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Jacobian routines

Routines have been added for computing the Jacobians of the transformations between rectangular and the following coordinate systems:

   cylindrical
   geodetic
   latitudinal
   spherical

The Jacobian routines support transformation of velocities between these coordinate systems. See the headers of the following SPICELIB routines/CSPICE functions for more information:

   DCYLDR/dcyldr_c
   DGEODR/dgeodr_c
   DLATDR/dlatdr_c
   DSPHDR/dsphdr_c
   DRDCYL/drdcyl_c
   DRDGEO/drdgeo_c
   DRDLAT/drdlat_c
   DRDSPH/drdsph_c

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NAIF ID to Object Name Mapping

The NAIF IDs for the following missions has been added to the set of IDs built into SPICE:

   CONTOUR
   LUNAR-A
   DRTS-WC
   MARS EXPRESS
   DEEP IMPACT
   STARLIGHT
   MER

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Documentation

DAS and EK Required Reading documents have been added to the SPICE Toolkit.

The CONVERT User's Guide has been updated to reflect new run-time binary file format translation capability.

The FRAMES Required Reading has been updated to include inertial frame information formerly contained in the NAIF_IDS Required Reading.

The NAIF_IDS Required Reading has been updated to reflect new Toolkit capability, through which the NAIF ID to name mappings can be defined using text kernel files.

The MKSPK User's Guide has been updated to add clarity throughout.

The ERROR, PCK, ROTATIONS, SPK, and TIME Required Reading documents have all been improved.

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CSPICE

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New CSPICE wrappers for EK routines

CSPICE wrappers have been added to support record-oriented EK manipulation, including record-oriented writing, updating, and reading.

CSPICE wrappers have been added to provide summary capabilities for loaded EK tables.

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Miscellaneous new CSPICE wrappers

Some new CSPICE wrappers have been added:

   frmnam_c
   inelpl_c
   namfrm_c

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CKBRIEF

A capability to display a separate record for each interpolation interval in each segment of a Type 2 or Type 3 CK file has been added to the program. This capability is implemented using the ``-dump'' command line option.

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COMMNT

An inconsistency between the program's functionality in interactive and command line modes has been fixed. The maximum length of a comment line that can be added to and extracted from the comments in either mode is now the same and is equal to 1000 characters.

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MKSPK

The program was modified to allow appending new data segments to an existing SPK file.

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VERSION

The interface of this utility program has been extended: a command line parameter causing the program to display additional library information has been added. See ``version -help'' for details.

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Bug Fixes

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CK, PCK, and SPK segment buffering and selection

Several bugs have been corrected in the modules CKBSR, PCKBSR, and SPKBSR. These bug fixes enable users to load more segments than can be buffered at once by these modules. However, the best run-time speed is still obtained when all segments of a given kernel type can be buffered. The current segment buffer sizes are:

   CK:    4000 segments
   SPK:   2000 segments
   PCK:    100 segments

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Const-qualification for various CSPICE interfaces

A number of CSPICE function interfaces have been updated to add const-qualification of input arrays. This fix enhances compatibility with C++ applications.

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CSPICE function gcpool_c fixed

This routine did not properly trim trailing blanks from values in its output array.

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MOVED fix for Fortran PC Linux platform

In some cases the routine MOVED incorrectly copied double precision numbers whose values were assigned via EQUIVALENCE statements with pairs of integers. This could happen when the integer bit patterns did not correspond to valid double precision numbers. This problem prevented correct manipulation of some DAF segment descriptors.

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EK query processing using LIKE operator and null values

Null values could be returned in some rare circumstances when a query employed the LIKE operator to compare scalar string column entries against a specified string value, and a null column entry was compared.

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EK time conversion

The EK time parsing code handled SCLK values incorrectly when the string ``SCLK'' appeared in the name of the clock.

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EK documentation

Various headers have been updated to indicate that query-and-fetch operations and EK fast writer operations may not be interleaved.

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Source code clean-up

Miscellaneous problems triggering annoying but insignificant compilation warnings have been fixed. Various files have had TAB characters removed. Others have had final newline characters added.

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Version 51 --- April 2000

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SPICELIB

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Instrument Kernel Support

The routine GETFOV was added to the Toolkit. It returns information describing the shape, size, boresight, and orientation of the field of view for traditional remote sensing instruments.

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Binary Kernel Recognition

The routine GETFAT was upgraded to use a more robust algorithm for identifying the type (SPK or CK) of inadequately labeled binary kernels. This modification is critical for Mars project SPICE customers who wish to use the SPICELIB utility FURNSH when loading binary kernels.

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CK

A new representation for the orientation of spacecraft structures has been added to the C-kernel system. C-kernel data type 04 provides a flexible and compact method for representing the attitude of structures by using Chebyshev polynomials to fit orientation data or models.

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SPK

Two new representations for position and velocity of objects have been added to the SPK system. Types 12 and 13 provide for the Hermite interpolation of states from series of state vectors. See the SPK Required Reading for further details.

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Miscellaneous

The list of names recognized by BODTRN was enhanced to support the identification of the "Cluster" spacecraft (1,2,3 and 4) as well as the Pluto-Kuiper Express spacecraft and simulation.

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MKSPK

The utility program MKSPK has been added to the general release of the SPICE Toolkit. This allows SPICE customers to more easily generate SPK files from tabular ephemeris information. See the User's Guide (mkspk.ug) for details on the use of MKSPK.

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SPKMERGE

The program was upgraded to correct an "infinite loop" that existed in rare cases on some platforms.

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Bug Fixes

Although it is unlikely that most users will notice any difference, a number of minor bug corrections have been incorporated:

--

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Version 50 --- October 1999

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CSPICE

Version 50 of the SPICE Toolkit includes a C language edition of the Toolkit. This provides a C language interface to the Toolkit and duplicates the FORTRAN capabilities. SPICE users interested in a C version of the Toolkit should specifically request the CSPICE version. Moreover, C users should read the document "CSPICE User's Guide" which addresses issues regarding the translation of the FORTRAN Toolkit to C.

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Additions and Extensions to SPICE routines

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Loading Kernels

The new routine FURNSH provides a single uniform interface for loading all SPICE kernels. In addition, the new interface allows you create a "meta-kernel" listing which SPICE kernels should be loaded. When this "meta-kernel" is supplied to FURNSH, all listed kernels will be loaded into the appropriate SPICE subsystems. It is anticipated that this new interface will substantially ease the problem of managing and loading SPICE kernels.

In addition to the routine FURNSH several related routines are provided to assist with the run-time management of kernels loaded through the FURNSH interface.

KTOTAL: returns the number of kernels that are currently available to your program as a result of previous calls to FURNSH and UNLOAD.

KDATA: provides an interface for retrieving (in order of their specification through FURNSH) kernels that are active in your application.

KINFO: allows you to retrieve information about a loaded kernel using the name of that kernel.

UNLOAD: provides an interface for unloading kernels that have been loaded via the routine FURNSH.

FORTRAN users should consult the header for the routine KEEPER for details on the use of these routines. C users should see the specific files furnsh_c.c, ktotal_c.c, kdata_c.c, kinfo_c.c and unload_c.c

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Position Only Interface.

The Frames and SPK subsystems have been extended to provide a "position only" interface. The user level routines in the extension are:

SPKPOS: returns the 3-vector giving the location of one object as seen from another corrected for light time and stellar aberration (if requested by the user) in the user specified reference frame.

PXFORM: returns the 3x3 matrix that transforms positions from one reference frame to another as a function of time.

These routines run slightly faster than their position and velocity counter parts: SPKEZR and SXFORM. In addition they allow you to use C-kernel based frames when the C-kernel does not contain angular velocity data.

See the routines PXFORM and SPKPOS for details on their use.

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ID-codes

The name/ID-code translation routines (BODN2C and BODC2N) have been extended so that users may add missing name/ID-code mappings to SPICE text kernels. Using this new capability, users can extend the built-in name/ID-code mapping by simply loading an appropriate SPICE text kernel with the interface FURNSH.

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Kernel Pool Enhancements

Several new kernel pool interfaces have been provided

STPOOL: Allows storage of long string valued variables through use of a continuation character.

PCPOOL: Allows the insertion of a character variable directly into the kernel pool without supplying a text kernel.

PDPOOL: Allows the insertion of a double precision variable directly into the kernel pool without supplying a text kernel.

PIPOOL: Allows the insertion of an integer variable directly into the kernel pool without supplying a text kernel.

LMPOOL: Similar to LDPOOL, but the text kernel is stored in an array of strings instead of an external file.

SZPOOL: allows run time retrieval of kernel pool memory parameters.

DVPOOL: allows deletion of a specific variable from the kernel pool.

GNPOOL: assists in determining which variables are defined in the kernel pool via variable name template matching.

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Continuous Spacecraft Clocks

The Spacecraft Clock system has been extended so that "ticks" can be modeled continuously instead of discretely. See the SCLK required reading for more details.

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Bad FTP File Transfer Detection

SPICE binary kernels have been enhanced so that Toolkit software can detect whether a binary kernel has been transferred using ASCII instead of BINARY transfer mode. Note that only SPICE binary kernels produced with the N0050 (or later) version of the SPICE Toolkit will have features required for this diagnosis.

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CK Writer Enhancements

The SPICE C-kernel writers have been enhanced to check that quaternions supplied to the writer are indeed nearly unit length. This check allows detection of programming errors earlier in the kernel production process.

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Bugs

No bugs were identified between version N0049 and N0050 of the Toolkit. However, users may notice that several routines have minor changes. The main reasons for code changes are:

1.

2.

3.

4.

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SPICE Utility Programs

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TOBIN

The utility program TOBIN which converts transfer format kernels to binary form, can now process transfer format kernels that have been wrapped with SFDUs.

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COMMNT

COMMNT now accepts command line arguments making it usable from user scripts.

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CKBRIEF

CKBRIEF is a new utility that allows you to quickly summarize a C-kernel in a manner similar to the summary capabilities provided by the SPK summary tool, BRIEF.

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MKSPK

MKSPK is a utility program that allows users to generate SPK files from appropriate and suitably tabularized position and velocity information.

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Documentation

Many SPICE documents were edited and brought up to date. Most notable of these is the document KERNEL.REQ which discusses SPICE text kernels and the use of the kernel pool.

In addition a new document called "Common Problems" (problems.req) has been included with the standard SPICE documentation. This document is intended to help you in trouble shooting problems that may arise with programming with the SPICE Toolkit.

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Version 49 --- September 1998

Version 49 of the SPICE Toolkit exists only to fix errors that were identified in version 48 of the Toolkit. The routines in SPICELIB that were corrected are:

   DELTET  --- obsolete routine maintained only for
               backwards compatibility. A bug was
               introduced in Version 48 that could
               lead to 0.003 seconds of error in outputs.
   DPFMT   --- documentation corrections.
   EKQMRT  --- a boundary bug was corrected.
   SPKW02  --- documentation correction
   TIMDEF  --- a bug was fixed that can only be manifested
               when the default exception handling is modified.
   TIMOUT  --- correction of grammatical errors in header.

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Version 48 --- May 1998

Version 48 of the SPICE Toolkit extends the set of supported platforms to include PCs running the LINUX operating system.

The time system was modified so that two digit years are interpreted as belonging to the years 1969-2068 inclusive.

In addition a number of minor bugs have been fixed. The intended functionality of the Toolkit has not changed. The most significant bug fixes are listed here.

   conics.for was updated.
 
      There was a coding error in the computation of the mean
      anomaly in the parabolic case. This problem has been
      corrected.
 
   et2lst.for was updated.
 
      The integer variable SUN was never initialized in the
      previous version of the routine. Now it is set to
      the proper value of 10.
 
   str2et.for was updated.
 
      The previous versions of this routine did not correctly
      convert day-of-year strings in the TDB or TDT systems.
      They treated the day of year as year, month, day giving
      spectacularly wrong answers.
 
      In addition, comments concerning the default century for
      abbreviated years were updated to reflect changes to TEXPYR
 
   timout.for was updated.
 
      The previous version of this routine did not output
      fractional components for epochs prior to 1 A.D.
 
      In addition, the default time system, calendar and time zone
      are obtained from TIMDEF.

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Version 47 --- July 1997

This chapter describes the significant changes to version 47 of the SPICE Toolkit.

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Documentation

There are two significant documentation changes to version 47 of the Toolkit.

1.

SPK.REQ

2.

FRAMES.REQ

These two documents together with the extensions to the frame system that have been added in version 47 allows one to easily model the dynamics of structures on spacecraft or surface rovers.

In addition to these major modifications to the base SPICE documentation, the document TIME.REQ has been updated to reflect a slight broadening of recognized time strings and to document the routine ET2LST that allows the user to convert to ephemeris time to local solar time for any natural ephemeris object.

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Software

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SPK

The SPK ephemeris system has been expanded to support Space Command Two Line Elements (formally known as NORAD Two Line Elements) and equinoctial elements.

To assist SPICE users who need to create SPK files that contain two line element sets, NAIF has a preliminary utility that allows the creation of SPK files from two line element data. This tool is available from NAIF on an as-needed basis. This utility is still a bit rough around the edges and has not yet been made an official Toolkit product.

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Frames

The frame system has been extended to support reference frames that can be described as a constant rotation from another frame (such as a bodyfixed, inertial or C-kernel frame). These frames are easily described using text based kernels. This new frame type is well suited for describing instrument, lander and topocentric frames.

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Time

The time parsing software was enhanced so that a slightly broader set of time formats are recognized. In addition the routine ET2LST was added to the Toolkit. This routine allows you to convert ET (ephemeris time TDB) to local solar time for a planet, satellite comet or asteroid. Local solar time is a "clock" measure of the angle between a local meridian and the meridian of the sun. See the TIME required reading for further details.

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Bug Fixes

The routines CKGPAV and CKFXFM in versions prior to version 47 of the Toolkit dealt with angular velocity in non-inertial frames incorrectly. This error did not affect C-kernels that were described relative to inertial frames. In those rare instances in which a C-kernel was described relative to a non-inertial frame, the mistreatment of angular velocity could lead to errors in the computation of velocities relative to the C-kernel frame. The computation of positions were not affected by this error.

The routine TIMOUT in version 46 did not reliably produce an abbreviated two-digit year. This error has been corrected.

All other errors were of a technical nature such as improper use of the SPICE exception handling subsystem and are unlikely to have affected most SPICE users.

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Version 46 --- January 1997

This chapter describes the significant changes to version 46 of the SPICE Toolkit.

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Documentation

NAIF now has available two overview documents that provide users with a higher level view of Toolkit. The two documents are called

   Introduction to SPICE
   Most Useful SPICELIB Subroutines

These documents are available in the ``doc'' subdirectory of the Toolkit in the postscript files

   intro.ps
   mostused.ps

respectively.

The first of these documents, ``Introduction to SPICE'', provides a broad overview of the SPICE system and attempts to lay out a map of where you can find more specific information about the various components of the SPICE system. The second document ``Most Useful SPICELIB Routines'' categorizes 120 or so of the most frequently used SPICELIB routines and provides a synopsis for each of these.

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Time

The time software has undergone significant enhancement. The Toolkit now supports a wider set of time formats and time systems. The most important new routines are:

   STR2ET
   TIMOUT
   TTRANS
   TPARTV

The new time software is outlined in the ``recommended reading'' file --- TIME.REQ which appears in the ``doc'' subdirectory of the Toolkit.

A number of convenience routines have been added to the Toolkit. Those likely to be of most interest to users are:

DPFMT: The routine DPFMT allows you to create a string representing a number by supplying a ``picture'' that should be followed in formatting the string.

TOSTDO: The routine TOSTDO is a portable means of writing strings to ``standard output.'' The particulars of formatting on various platforms are handled transparently. Using this routine, you can isolate yourself from formatting considerations that arise when using the intrinsic FORTRAN WRITE statement.

The remainder of the modifications to the Toolkit are primarily to ease problems associated with maintenance of the Toolkit.

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Version 45 --- October 1996

Version 45 is a quick update to correct an oversight in versions 43 and 44. Although the reference frames DE-143 was added to the collection of non-inertial reference frames in version 43, it was not available to all of the SPICE subsystems. Version 45 corrects this deficiency.

In addition to this correction to the reference frame subsystem, a number of minor corrections were made to the DAS subsystem and to error messages returned by EK software.

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Version 44 --- August 1996

This chapter describes the significant changes to version 44 of the SPICE Toolkit.

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SPK Subsystem

The main workhorse routine of the SPK subsystem, SPKGEO, was modified to remove potentially redundant computations. As a result, some applications may see a performance improvement on the order of 60 percent.

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Inspekt

Inspekt was upgraded to support the DEC Alpha OSF/1 environment. All functional aspects of Inspekt are now fully supported in the DEC Alpha OSF/1 environment.

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Bug Fixes

Several errors in the EK and supporting DAS subsystem were corrected. These fixes will be visible to only a small number of SPICE users. (Primarily those users who create E-kernels or access the EK files directly through the subroutine interface.) Users whose primary use of E-kernels is via the program Inspekt will see no visible changes in the SPICE system.

The generic segment subsystem was corrected. The errors were discovered by the NAIF staff while developing new SPK data types. These new data types are not yet incorporated into SPICELIB. Consequently users of the SPICE system are unlikely to have used any of the code in which these errors were found.

The frames subsystem was corrected. In NAIF's experiments in converting the library to C, an error was found in the routine FRMCHG. This error is of a pedantic nature and has not surfaced in any of the supported native FORTRAN environments.

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Version 43 --- May 1996

This chapter describes the new capabilities available in version 43 of the SPICE Toolkit.

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Brief

The SPICE utility program BRIEF has been added to the generic SPICE Toolkit. This program allows you to easily summarize the contents of an SPK file. The summary can be tuned depending upon the level of detail you are interested in seeing. See the BRIEF User's Guide (brief.ug) for an explanation of features.

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Star Catalogs.

In version 43 of the SPICE Toolkit, an introductory level star catalog capability has been introduced. The routines used for manipulating star catalogs are:

   STCF01
   STCG01
   STCL01

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CHGIRF

Support for the inertial reference frame DE143 has been added to SPICELIB.

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BODTRN

The routine BODTRN has been added to the Toolkit. This routine allows you to easily translate between the names of ephemeris objects to their NAIF ID codes.

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Performance Improvements

A number of performance enhancements have been included. Most notable in this list is the SPICE exception handling subsystem. By relinking your programs you may see an improvement in performance from 20 to 30 percent (depending upon how heavily your program makes use of the SPICE exception handling capability).

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Version 42 --- December 1995

This chapter describes new capabilities available in version 42 of the SPICE Toolkit and includes examples of how to make use of these new capabilities. The major new capability of Version 42 of the Toolkit is the official release of the SPICE Events Kernel Software. This software includes all the interface level routines for reading and writing events kernels. It also includes the event kernel browser program Inspekt. Inspekt has an extensive on-line help facility that for now must serve as a user's guide to the program.

Full documentation for the new capabilities will be available in version 43 of the Toolkit.

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Version 41 --- October 1995

This chapter describes new capabilities available in version 41 of the SPICE Toolkit and includes examples of how to make use of these new capabilities. There are two major new capabilities provided in version 41 of the Toolkit. First is the ability to retrieve the states of objects by using the names of the objects instead of SPICE integer id-codes for those objects. Second is the ability to store and retrieve states of objects relative to non-inertial reference frames.

Until now, the primary mechanism for retrieving state information from the SPICE ephemeris (SPK) files has been the subroutine SPKEZ (pronounced: ess pee kay eee' zee). This routine requires that you know the integer id-codes associated with the objects of interest.

Beginning with version 41 of the SPICE Toolkit the routine SPKEZR (pronounced: ess pee kay eee' zee er ) will be the primary mechanism for retrieving states. The calling sequence for this new routine is

   CALL SPKEZR ( TARG, ET, REF, ABCORR, OBS, STARG, LT )

where

   Inputs:

TARG: is a character string that is the name of the object whose state is of interest. Examples are: 'JUPITER', 'EARTH', 'SUN', 'GOLDSTONE'.

ET: is the epoch at which the state is desired. ET is a double precision number giving the epoch measure in ephemeris seconds past the epoch of the J2000 reference frame.

REF: is a character string giving the name of the reference frame in which the output state should be represented. Examples are: 'J2000', 'IAU_EARTH'.

ABCORR: is a string indicating what forms of aberration corrections should be applied to the retrieved state.

OBS: is a string that is the name of the object to which the returned state will be relative. Examples are: 'EARTH', 'GOLSTONE'.

   Outputs:

STARG: is the state of the target body relative to the observer represented in the specified reference frame with the specified aberration corrections accounted for.

LT: is the light time in seconds from the target to the observer.

To illustrate the use of this routine, suppose that you wanted to get the B1950 state of Mars relative to Earth corrected for light-time and stellar aberration at the epoch that occurs 10 million seconds prior to the J2000 epoch. The code fragment below shows how you would call SPKEZR to obtain this state. (Note that this assumes that you have already loaded ephemerides for Mars and the Earth.)

    DOUBLE PRECISION      STATE ( 6 )
    DOUBLE PRECISION      LT
 
    CALL SPKEZR ( 'MARS',  1.0D+07, 'B1950', 'LT+S',
   .             'EARTH', STATE, LT )

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Non-inertial Reference Frames

Prior to version 41 of the Toolkit, storing or obtaining states relative to a body-fixed frame required conversion to or from states relative to inertial frames such as J2000. With version 41 of the SPICE Toolkit, this restriction has been removed. It is now possible to store states relative to a non-inertial frame. Moreover, you may now retrieve states relative to non-inertial frames.

For example suppose you want to determine whether or not Jupiter is above the local horizon at the Goldstone tracking site. The following code fragment allows you to make this determination at an epoch ET. Note we've hard-coded the radii for the spheroid that approximates the surface of the earth.

   C     Look up the bodyfixed state of Jupiter relative to
   C     the Goldstone tracking site and the state of
   C     Goldstone relative to the center of the earth.
   C
         CALL SPKEZR ( 'JUPITER',   ET,    'IAU_EARTH', 'LT+S',
        .              'GOLDSTONE', JSTATE, LT )
 
         CALL SPKEZR ( 'GOLDSTONE', ET,    'IAU_EARTH', 'NONE',
        .              'EARTH',     GSTATE, LT )
   C
   C     Compute the local surface normal at the Goldstone site.
   C
         EQRAD1 = 6378.140
         EQRAD2 = 6378.140
         POLRAD = 6356.75
 
         CALL SURFNM ( EQRAD1, EQRAD2, POLRAD, GSTATE, LNORML )
   C
   C     Next compute the angle between the local normal and the
   C     vector to Jupiter. If the angle is less than pi/2 then
   C     Jupiter is above the local horizon.  Otherwise it's not
   C     visible.
   C
         ANGLE = VSEP ( JSTATE, LNORML )
 
         IF ( ANGLE .LT. HALFPI() ) THEN
            WRITE (*,*) 'Jupiter is above the horizon.'
         ELSE
            WRITE (*,*) 'Jupiter is not visible from Goldstone.'
         END IF

Below is a list of the non-inertial frames that are currently supported. Frames that begin with the letters IAU are frames whose orientation is specified in the report: "Report of the IAU/IAG/COSPAR Working Group on Cartographic Coordinates and Rotational Elements of the Planets and Satellites"

   IAU_ADRASTEA
   IAU_AMALTHEA
   IAU_ANANKE
   IAU_ARIEL
   IAU_ATLAS
   IAU_BELINDA
   IAU_BIANCA
   IAU_CALLISTO
   IAU_CALYPSO
   IAU_CARME
   IAU_CHARON
   IAU_CORDELIA
   IAU_CRESSIDA
   IAU_DEIMOS
   IAU_DESDEMONA
   IAU_DESPINA
   IAU_DIONE
   IAU_EARTH
   IAU_EARTH_BARYCENTER
   IAU_ELARA
   IAU_ENCELADUS
   IAU_EPIMETHEUS
   IAU_EUROPA
   IAU_GALATEA
   IAU_GANYMEDE
   IAU_HELENE
   IAU_HIMALIA
   IAU_HYPERION
   IAU_IAPETUS
   IAU_IO
   IAU_JANUS
   IAU_JULIET
   IAU_JUPITER
   IAU_JUPITER_BARYCENTER
   IAU_LARISSA
   IAU_LEDA
   IAU_LYSITHEA
   IAU_MARS
   IAU_MARS_BARYCENTER
   IAU_MERCURY
   IAU_MERCURY_BARYCENTER
   IAU_METIS
   IAU_MIMAS
   IAU_MIRANDA
   IAU_MOON
   IAU_NAIAD
   IAU_NEPTUNE
   IAU_NEPTUNE_BARYCENTER
   IAU_NEREID
   IAU_OBERON
   IAU_OPHELIA
   IAU_PANDORA
   IAU_PASIPHAE
   IAU_PHOBOS
   IAU_PHOEBE
   IAU_PLUTO
   IAU_PLUTO_BARYCENTER
   IAU_PORTIA
   IAU_PROMETHEUS
   IAU_PROTEUS
   IAU_PUCK
   IAU_RHEA
   IAU_ROSALIND
   IAU_SATURN
   IAU_SATURN_BARYCENTER
   IAU_SINOPE
   IAU_SUN
   IAU_TELESTO
   IAU_TETHYS
   IAU_THALASSA
   IAU_THEBE
   IAU_TITAN
   IAU_TITANIA
   IAU_TRITON
   IAU_UMBRIEL
   IAU_URANUS
   IAU_URANUS_BARYCENTER
   IAU_VENUS
   IAU_VENUS_BARYCENTER

Table of Contents

What's New in SPICE

Introduction

Version 63 --- April 2009

Environments

New Environments

Complete List of Supported Environments

Lahey Memory Issue Related to File Opening/Closing

Scratch EK File Issue in Icy on PC/Windows

Geometry Finder (GF) Subsystem

SPICELIB High-Level GF APIs

CSPICE High-Level GF APIs

Icy and Mice High-Level GF APIs

SPICELIB/CSPICE/Icy/Mice

SURFPV/surfpv_c (SPICELIB/CSPICE only)

DVSEP/dvsep_c (SPICELIB/CSPICE only)

GETFOV

FURNSH

Improved Error Messages from PXFORM/SXFORM

Built-in NAIF ID Code/Name Definitions

Mice (MATLAB interface to CSPICE) Only

New Interfaces

New and Updated Applications

FRMDIFF

CKBRIEF

Documentation

Language Specific Required Reading Documents

CKBRIEF User's Guide

Bug Fixes

SINCPT, SRFXPT

POOL Watchers

Frame subsystem

Error handling

Non-printing Character Detection in Time System

MKSPK

CKBRIEF

Version 62 --- March 2008

Environments

New Environments

Complete List of Supported Environments

Use of -m32 Option

Lahey Memory Issue Related to File Opening/Closing

Scratch EK File Issue in Icy on PC/Windows

Mice

SPICELIB/CSPICE/Icy/Mice

New ``Surface Intercept'' routine SINCPT

New ``Illumination Angles'' routine ILUMIN

New ``Sub-observer Point'' routine SUBPNT

New ``Sub-solar Point'' Routine SUBSLR

Improvements of Aberration Corrected Velocity in the SPK Subsystem

New SPK Routines

New Binary PCK Coverage Routines PCKFRM and PCKCOV

New Routine WNCARD

New Routine EDTERM

SCLK Buffer Size Increase

TABs in Text Kernels

Built-in NAIF ID Code/Name Definitions

Icy (IDL interface to CSPICE) Only

New and Updated Interfaces

Documentation

Permutted Index for Icy and Mice

BRIEF User's Guide

Documentation on NAIF Web Server

BRIEF

CKBRIEF

MKSPK

SUBPT Cookbook

Bug Fixes

EV2LIN

HYPTOF

INELPL

RAXISA

SC01

SRFXPT

BRIEF

CKBRIEF

Header Updates

Version 61 --- December 2006

Rules Regarding Use of SPICE Components

Environments