Reprocessing Pioneer Venus Orbiter radio occultation data

<p>RIU-Planetary Reseach has won funding support for the reprocessing and the interpretation of the original raw open-loop occultation data taken by the Pioneer Venus Orbiter radio science experiment ORO from 1979 to 1988. These original raw open-loop data are available from the PDS while original processed atmospheric and ionospheric (temperature and electron density, respectively) profiles from the Venus atmosphere are not.&#160;</p> <p>We shall apply modern software code together with a new version of the Venus gravity field and newly processed orbit data available as SPICE kernels.</p> <p>A review of the original data sets showed a variety of observation lengths ranging from a few minutes to about 20 minutes duration. The longer observation sets contain presumably ingress and egress data. We shall present atmospheric and ionospheric profiles processed from exemplary original Pioneer Venus Orbiter raw open-loop data setsand compare them with VEX VeRa radio occultation profiles for comparable observation conditions.&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p>