General information about SPICE E-kernels
=========================================

   The purpose of the Events (E) -kernel (EK) is to store
   instrument and spacecraft commands and status information.

   The means of accessing the EK data are provided via a collection of
   subroutines that are part of the SPICELIB library, the major
   component of the SPICE Toolkit, or via the SPICE system utility
   programs, such as INSPEKT. The subroutines can be integrated into a
   user's application program while the INSPEKT program can be used to
   view E-kernel information interactively.

   To use E-kernels a SPICE Leapseconds (LSK) kernel is required.

   Refer to the EK.REQ documents provided with the Toolkit or available
   from the NAIF Node of PDS to get more information on how to access
   E-kernel data.


Venus Express E-Kernel Files
============================

   The following file describes the contents of the DATA/EK directory of the
   Venus Express SPICE data set.

   Sources of kernels and naming convention:
   ----------------------------------------

   - Kernel containing the measured gain of the antenna, for a given set
     of frequencies, at regular intervals in azimuth (phi) and elevation
     (theta), for both right polarization and cross polarization.
     Therefore, the set of data provided by CASA Espacio was made up of
     several files, each one containing data for a given frequency.


   The most detailed description of the data in a binary EK file is
   provided in metadata included inside the comment area of the file.
   This information can be viewed using the utility programs COMMNT and
   SPACIT included in the NAIF Toolkit. The Toolkit is available from
   the NAIF website.

   All binary EK files (*.BES) contained in this directory are
   little-endian (LTL-IEEE) binary files.


Venus Express E-kernels contained on this data set
==================================================

   The following Venus Express E-kernels are provided in this data set:

       VEX_HGA_RAD_Vxx.BES        This kernel contains radiation pattern
                                  measures for the High Gain antenna 1,
                                  provided to J. Vazquez and S. Remus (ESA)
                                  by Rafael Caballero de la Vega (CASA
                                  Espacio).

   Note that several versions of the same kernel can be provided. In that
   case, the file with the highest version number is the most up to date, and
   the one that should be used.


Kernel File Details
===================

   The most detailed description of the data in a binary EK file is
   provided in metadata included inside the comment area of the file.
   This information can be viewed using utility programs 'commnt' and
   'spacit' included into the SPICE Toolkit.

   At least a basic knowledge of the SPICE system is needed in order to
   use these kernels. The SPICE Toolkit provides versions in Fortran
   (SPICELIB), C (CSPICE), IDL (Icy), Matlab (Mice), and Java
   (JNISpice) and the user can choose any one that suits him/her.

   The SPICE routine FURNSH can be used to load a kernel file into a
   SPICE-based application to make kernel data usable with SPICE
   APIs.