An important aspect of the "IceSat2R" (https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/IceSat2R/index.html) package is that it includes the code, documentation, and examples so that users can retrieve, process, and analyze data based on specific workflows.
For instance,
A user can select an "area of interest" (AOI) either programmatically or interactively
If the "Reference Ground Track" (RGT) is not known, the user has the option to utilize either
one of the "overall_mission_orbits()" or "time_specific_orbits()" to compute the RGT(s) for a pre-specified global area or for a time period, or
one of the "vsi_nominal_orbits_wkt()" or "vsi_time_specific_orbits_wkt()" to compute the RGT(s) for a specific AOI
Once the RGT is computed it can be verified with the "getTracks()" function of the "OpenAltimetry Web API" (https://openaltimetry.org/data/swagger-ui/)
Finally the user can utilize one of the "get_atlas_data()" or "get_level3a_data()" functions to retrieve the data for specific product(s), Date(s) and Beam(s)
This work-flow is illustrated also in a diagram
