The ORAC control system will produce standard Multi Extension Files (MEFs) in FITS format for export to UK pipelines. Stored within will be sufficient ancilliary information to fully describe the data taken and to invoke the appropriate pipeline processing actions.
The summit pipeline will run on the `native' NDF format used at UKIRT, but will otherwise provide a subset of the operations carried out in the basic pipeline.
Data will be taken according to a fixed menu of pre-defined observing protocols, in order to guarantee pipeline processing both at the summit and in the UK. These will include single shot, interleaving, dither sequences, tile sequences and so on - details TBD (see glossary in Appendix for definition of terms).
Our general philosophy is that all fundamental data products are FITS MEFs, including the generated catalogue binary tables, and that all derived information (DQC, photometric and astrometric calibration) and processing steps are also incorporated within the FITS headers.
The FITS headers thereby provide the basis for ingest into databases for archiving and databases for real time monitoring of survey progress and survey planning.