Setup¶

Getting the source¶

The source code for the spiceminer package can be downloaded from here.

Quickstart¶

In most cases these steps should be sufficient for a new install:

python setup.py cspice
python setup.py build_ext --inplace
python setup.py data

Getting CSPICE¶

The spiceminer package requires some external C-code to work. This code can be downloaded from here, or by running python setup.py cspice from inside the spiceminer project directory. This script will automatically check your system and download the version best suited for your system.

If you download the the code yourself there are 2 different ways to make sure it is available in the build process:

Copy or symlink the unzipped code to spiceminer/cspice.
Set the environment variable CSPICEPATH to the absolute path of the unzipped code.

Building¶

To compile the C-extension run python setup.py build_ext --inplace. This will generate the C-library and put it in the correct directory. You can now copy the spiceminer/spiceminer folder to somewhere on your PYTHONPATH.

Note

If you use the standard setup.py install method of installing you don’t need to do this as it will automatically be done while installing.

Getting data¶

NASA hosts a lot of kernels here.

spiceminer also comes with a little script that can automatically download some kernel collections for you. Currently available collections are:

base: Information about planets and moons from Mercury to Mars. Also includes a leapseconds kernel that is necessary to use any position/ rotation information at all.
msl: Information about the Mars Science Laboratory and its rover.
helios: Information about the helios mission.
ulysses: Information about the ulysses mission.

To download any of these, simply call python setup.py data options=[name[,name...]] from the project directory.