Welcome to the STT. For background on science traceability, see the About page. For a description of the Science Traceability Matrix (STM)'s columns, see the Glossary page. This Help page will help you get started using the STT.

The first column of the STM is pre-populated with the overarching Science Goal "Is there evidence of past or present life in the solar system?".

Clicking "Select biosignature and environment" will take you the the Life Detection Knowledge Base to select a biosignature and environment. Once selected, click the "Add to STT" button as shown below. This will take you back to the STT with the columns 2 (Science Objectives) to 5 (Instrument Requirements) populated with either text or hyperlinks, depending on the column. Column 8 (Top-Level Mission Requirements) is also populated.

Adding a new measurement parameter lets you go through the process again to add more rows. You can also remove rows until you are satisfied with the scope of your STM. If you select a biosignature from a different branch in the Life Detection Knowledge Base taxonomy tree, or a different environment, this will automatically generate a new Science Objective in column 2.

Any further editing of your STM has to be done manually. To this end, you can export your Science Traceability Matrix to a .csv file using the button at the top of the STT page.

You can open this .csv file in a spreadsheet editor to modify your STM. You can change the pre-populated text to make a Science Goal, Science Objective, Measurement Requirement, or Top-Level Mission Requirement either more or less specific than the default, or word it differently.

You have to use a spreadsheet editor to manually formulate (edit) Instrument Requirements (column 6) given (1) existing knowledge on a biosignature in an environment and (2) information on the measurement technology methods able to provide signals informing the source of the potential biosignature (measurement parameter). The first is provided in the relevant entry of the Life Detection Knowledge Base linked automatically from the STT's Instrument Requirements column. The second is provided in the relevant entries of the Measurement Technology Module linked automatically from the STT's Observables column. 

You can also use a spreadsheet editor to manually write information on Projected Performance (column 7), if publicly available from the Instrupedia summaries for the relevant entries of the Measurement Technology Module or otherwise found in the technical literature. This information is often competition-sensitive, especially for instruments that have not yet flown, and therefore may be difficult to obtain.