Calibration pipeline of VIRTIS-M onboard Venus Express

The Visible and InfraRed Thermal Imaging Spectrometer (VIRTIS) is flying on board the ESA mission Venus Express and orbiting around the planet Venus since April 11 2006, providing very valuable remote sensing data of the planet. The instrument combines a double capability: high-resolution visible and infrared imaging in the 0.28–5 µm range at moderate spectral resolution (VIRTIS-M channel) and high-resolution spectroscopy in the 2–5 µm range (VIRTIS-H channel). The scientific objectives of VIRTIS cover a large field and span from the study of the surface up to the upper atmosphere. The team is composed by people coming from institutes abroad from more than 10 countries. About 2.5 Gbit of raw compressed data are coming in average every day from the spacecraft to be further processed and distributed to the team for the data analysis. Here we described how the pipeline is structured and the various different steps performed from the telemetry to the calibrated data products but focused on VIRTIS-M. We also present some example of data product.