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Starting in 1994 April, processing centers in the U.S. and Germany began distributing data in the so-called ``Rationalized Data File'' (RDF) format. The RDF format was designed by joint effort between the U.S. and German RSDCs. RDF utilizes standard FITS constructs with file extension structures, header keywords, table columns standardized in a generic, multi-mission manner. The adoption of the RDF format by both data centers means that the format of data processed after 1994 April will be site-independent. In addition, since the RDF format is also being utilized by other high-energy astronomy missions such as Einstein and ASCA, joint analysis of data from these missions and ROSAT is made easier. For more information about the RDF format, consult the ROSAT Data Products Guide.
REV2 data are those data processed by SASS 6.0 or higher and distributed in RDF format. It is planned that all REV0 data will be reprocessed into REV2 data and released to the archive. In addition, REV1 data will be converted to RDF (although not reprocessed through SASS) and archived. As the RDF versions of the REV0 and REV1 data are archived they will replace the earlier archived versions. This means that eventually the RDA will solely consist of data processed with SASS 6.0 or higher in RDF format.
Table 9.6 lists the RDF data products generated for both PSPC and HRI.