CONTROL ID: 1495805 TITLE: Development and validation of software to process radio occultation data: From time series of frequency residuals to vertical profiles of atmospheric and ionospheric properties ABSTRACT BODY: For most planetary science instruments, expertise in data processing is widely distributed across the planetary science community. This is not the case for radio occultation observations, which provide vertical profiles of atmospheric and ionospheric properties from measurements of the frequency of radio signals. Increasing the population of radio occultation processing experts will have positive consequences for this field. Here we report the latest results from a project to develop and disseminate capabilities to process radio occultation data. We describe how to obtain vertical profiles of atmospheric and ionospheric properties from time series of frequency residuals, emphasizing issues important for practical implementation that are not obvious in published work. Our methods have been demonstrated successfully on data from a Mars Global Surveyor occultation at Mars. Small differences exist between our results and those archived by the Mars Global Surveyor team, indicating that our techniques, though promising, have not yet been perfected. CURRENT SECTION/FOCUS GROUP: Planetary Sciences CURRENT SESSION: P001. Planetary Sciences General Contributions INDEX TERMS: [0343] ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE / Planetary atmospheres, [2459] IONOSPHERE / Planetary ionospheres, [2494] IONOSPHERE / Instruments and techniques, [6225] PLANETARY SCIENCES: SOLAR SYSTEM OBJECTS / Mars. AUTHORS/INSTITUTIONS: L. Moore, P. Withers, , Boston University, Boston, MA; K. Cahoy, I. Beerer, R. Hu, K. Kennedy, R. Kingsbury, M. Webber, , MIT, Cambridge, MA; SPONSOR NAME: Luke Moore CONTACT (E-MAIL ONLY): moore@bu.edu TITLE OF TEAM: (No Image Selected) (No Table Selected)