NSSDC-HEASARC Memorandum of Understanding

A key concept underlying the Space Science Data System is that, where it is likely to offer better user benefit at lesser or similar cost, science data should be managed by scientists expert in the data. For many years this has been the paradigm of the Planetary Data System (PDS) for which NSSDC serves as a permanent archive and a dissemination site for PDS-created CD-ROMs to the general public.

NSSDC and the High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center (HEASARC) operated by the Laboratory for High Energy Astrophysics at Goddard have just signed a new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) establishing a similar relation. The HEASARC will provide interfaces to and the actual near-line mass storage of such important High Energy Astronomy (HEA) data sets as the X-Ray Timing Explorer (XTE), the Advanced Satellite for Cosmology and Astrophysics (ASCA), the Roentgen Satellite (ROSAT), and the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (CGRO) for network access. NSSDC will provide a permanent archive of these data and will support requests for HEASARC CD-ROMs and, if needed, for large numbers of replicated media.

The new MOU replaces one in which NSSDC and HEASARC shared the near-line mass storage roles. NSSDC's HEA data on the NASA Data Archive and Distribution Service (NDADS) were accessible through both its own interfaces (the Automated Retrieval Mail System [ARMS], the Web Interface for Searching Archival Research Data [WISARD]) and through the HEASARC's interfaces. As a result of this new MOU, NSSDC has stopped its ingestion of ASCA and ROSAT data to NDADS, which amounted to 180 GB in 1996. Users attempting to access HEA data from NSSDC/NDADS are linked to the HEASARC interface.

NASA home page

GSFC home page

GSFC organizational page