The VenSpec suite organization: collaborative development from instrument proposal to scientific analysis

VenSpec is an instrument-suite composed of three spectrometers sharing a central control unit. Tied together by the common goal of exploring the different layers of Venus from the surface to the upper atmosphere in a holistic manner, three instrument lead scientists from Germany (DLR), France (LATMOS) and Belgium (BIRA-IASB) have joined forces. From the outset of the phase A study a collaborative work environment has been put in place to enable synergistic scientific planning and development work from the initial conceptual design throughout the actual instrument development and leading up to the operations and analysis of scientific returns. This paper addresses the challenges the consortium has faced in the process of guiding geographically, financially and institutionally separated projects towards a common goal with as little organizational overhead to the teams as possible. In the case of VenSpec, the scientific aspiration of working together via a common science team was set down at the beginning of the project: the consortium was consolidated by assuring each party full access to all scientific data produced by any instrument and also by connecting them physically to a common central control unit. This enables the consortium to act as a single entity towards the European Space Agency as well as the prime industrial contractor when beneficial while giving each party the freedom to act independently of each other for those aspects of scientific planning or technical development in which harmonization is not required. This paper lays out how the VenSpec consortium is organized and explains how close collaboration and the leveraging of synergies can be balanced with independent activities and individual and tailored strategies.