Description: SPICE is an information system that uses ancillary data to provide Solar System geometry information to scientists and engineers for planetary missions in order to plan and analyze scientific observations from space-born instruments. SPICE is developed and maintained by the Navigation and Ancillary Information Facility (NAIF) team of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (NASA). NAIF and the ESA SPICE Service provide SPICE Training Courses on a yearly basis, these are three-day courses which are hosted either nearby Pasadena (California, USA) or nearby Madrid (Spain).

The ESA SPICE Service offers an open Short Course on SPICE aimed at scientists and engineers who want to be introduced to SPICE or who might be considering attending a complete SPICE Training.

During this course a brief introduction to SPICE will be provided and it will be followed by a practical hands-on lesson of a SPICE application based on a Mars-Express remote sensing observation scenario. We will also go through WebGeocalc, SPICE-Enhanced Cosmographia 3D Visualization Software and the Python package spiops.

A Linux Virtual Machine will be distributed with everything required pre-installed. The used programming language will be Python. People who would like to use IDL, Matlab, C or FORTRAN are also welcome but they should come with their environment setup for SPICE.

More information available at spice.esac.esa.int