The Mars Observer Camera ground data system

The Mars Observer Camera (MOC), launched on board the Mars Observer spacecraft in September 1992, is to be operated by a small team using large amounts of computer assistance. Here, we describe the architecture of the MOC Ground Data System, which is capable of taking imaging requests, generating imaging command sequences, receiving the acquired images, archiving them, and delivering them in several processed forms to the MOC user community, all with the need for only a limited amount of human interaction.