GOALS AND/OR OBJECTIVES THE VENUS EXPRESS (VEX) ANALYZER OF SPACE PLASMAS AND ENERGETIC ATOMS (ASPERA-4) EXPERIMENT PACKAGE INCLUDED AN ELECTRON SPECTROMETER (ELS) CONTRIBUTED BY NASA AND BUILT BY OUR GROUP AT SOUTHWEST RESEARCH INSTITUTE (SWRI). DATA FROM THIS INSTRUMENT ARE USED TO STUDY THE PLASMA ENVIRONMENT AROUND VENUS. THE ELS INSTRUMENT DATA ARE PUBLICLY AVAILABLE ON THE EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY (ESA) PLANETARY SCIENCE ARCHIVE (PSA) AND CAN BE RETRIEVED VIA FTP FROM: FTP://PSA.ESAC.ESA.INT/PUB/MIRROR/VENUS-EXPRESS/ASPERA4 HOWEVER THESE ARCHIVED DATA ARE CALIBRATED TELEMETRY AND ARE NOT CORRECTED FOR NOISE FROM CONTAMINATION SOURCES. A SENSOR BACKGROUND DATA PRODUCT THAT INCREASES THE SCIENCE ACCURACY AND IMPROVES THE SCIENCE QUALITY OF DATA EXISTS WITHIN THE SCIENCE TEAM BUT IT WAS NOT ARCHIVED BY ESA IN THE PSA. THE OBJECTIVE OF THIS PROPOSAL IS TO MAKE THAT PRIVATELY HELD BACKGROUND DATA PUBLICLY AVAILABLE THROUGH THE NASA PDS PUBLIC ARCHIVE. THE ELS BACKGROUND SIGNALS ARE A COMBINATION OF RANDOMLY GENERATED COUNTS FROM THE ELS MICROCHANNEL PLATE SENSOR ELECTRONICALLY COUPLED ANODES CHARGE SENSITIVE AMPLIFIERS AND FROM HIGHLY TIME-VARIABLE GEOPHYSICAL PENETRATING RADIATION SUCH AS FROM GALACTIC COSMIC RAYS AND SOLAR ENERGETIC PARTICLE (SEP) EVENTS FROM THE SUN. ABOVE 1 KEV BACKGROUND SIGNALS CAN DOMINATE THE ELECTRON SPECTRUM LEADING TO NEARLY 100% ERROR IN THE PARTICLE ENERGY SPECTRUM WHICH WOULD TRANSLATE TO LARGE ERRORS IN THE AMOUNT AND LOCATION OF PARTICLE ENERGY DEPOSITED IN THE ATMOSPHERE MAKING AN ACCURATE SUBTRACTION OF THE ELS BACKGROUND CRUCIAL TO ANALYSIS. THIS IS PARTICULARLY IMPORTANT DURING SEP EVENTS WHERE ELS BACKGROUND LEVELS ARE SEEN TO INCREASE BY AT LEAST TWO ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE DUE TO PENETRATING RADIATION WITHIN THE INSTRUMENT. MOREOVER DEPENDING ON THE SPACECRAFT ORIENTATION THE BACKGROUND IS A FUNCTION OF ELS ANODE AND TIME ALL OF WHICH WERE CHARACTERIZED AT SWRI DURING THE VENUS EXPRESS MISSION BUT NOT ARCHIVED. APPROACH AND METHODOLOGY THROUGHOUT THE NINE-YEAR VEX MISSION (LAUNCHED IN LATE 2005 ARRIVED AT VENUS IN 2006 AND ENDED LATE 2014) ALL VEX ELS DATA WERE AUTOMATICALLY PROCESSED AND STORED AT SWRI IN THE INSTRUMENT DATA FILE SET (IDFS) FORMAT. THE VEX ELS DATA HAVE BEEN AND ARE BEING USED FOR COLLABORATIVE STUDIES WHICH NECESSITATED THE GENERATION OF THE BACKGROUND DATA (ALSO PROCESSED INTO THE IDFS FORMAT). A SOFTWARE TOOL IDFSTOPDS WAS DEVELOPED TO CONVERT IDFS FORMATTED DATA TO PDS3 FORM SINCE THE IDFS FORMAT IS NOT PDS-COMPLIANT. FOR THIS PROPOSAL PDS4-COMPLIANT STRUCTURES AND LABELS ARE TO BE PRODUCED. THUS THIS SOFTWARE TOOL WILL BE UPDATED AND WILL BE USED TO BATCH PROCESS ALL OF THE VEX ELS BACKGROUND DATA INTO PDS4-COMPLIANT FORM FOR SUBMISSION TO THE PDS-PPI NODE FOR PUBLIC DISSEMINATION. THE ASSOCIATED DOCUMENTATION AND FILE SYSTEM STRUCTURE WILL BE DEVELOPED AND SUBMITTED WITH THE ASPERA-4 ELS BACKGROUND DATA TO PDS. SPECIFICS SUCH AS REVIEW OF THE DATA SET DELIVERY FREQUENCY AND SCHEDULE WILL BE FINALIZED BETWEEN THE NASA PDS-PPI NODE AND SWRI. SCOPE RELATIVE TO THE PROGRAM ELEMENT THIS PROPOSAL ARCHIVES BACKGROUND DATA FROM THE ELS INSTRUMENT FROM THE VEX ASPERA-4 EXPERIMENT. THE PROPOSED EFFORT IS WITHIN THE SCOPE OF THE PDART PROGRAM BECAUSE INSTRUMENT BACKGROUND IS A HIGHER-ORDER DATA PRODUCT THAT IS NOT CURRENTLY PUBLICLY AVAILABLE. IT MEETS THE CRITERIA OF SECTION 1.2 OF THE APPENDIX C.7 OF THE NASA ROSES CALL. ARCHIVING PRIVATELY HELD BACKGROUND DATA TO MAKE IT PUBLICLY AVAILABLE WILL INCREASE THE SCIENCE ACCURACY AND IMPROVE THE SCIENCE QUALITY FOR ALL RESEARCHERS WHO USE THE VEX ASPERA-4 ELS DATA TO INVESTIGATE THE INTERACTION BETWEEN VENUS ATMOSPHERE IONOSPHERE AND THE SOLAR WIND.