Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
strongly increased over the last years and the trend is likely to increase and
increase. Therefore, the prospect of losing the digital records of science (and
with the specific unique data, information and publications managed by ESA)
is very alarming. Issues for the near future concern: (1) the identification of the
type and amount of data to be preserved; (2) the location of archives and their
replication for security reasons; (3) the detailed technical choices (e.g. formats,
media); (4) the availability of adequate funds. Of course decisions should be
taken in coordination with other data owners and with the support/advice of the
user community.
ESA overall strategies
Currently major constraints are that the data volumes are increasing dramatically
(the ESA plans of new missions indicate 5-10 times more data to be archived in
next 10-15 years), the available financial budgets are inadequate (preservation
and access to data of each ESA mission are covered only until 10 years after the
end of the mission) and data preservation/access policies are different for each
EO mission and each operator or Agency.
To respond to the urgent need for a coordinated and coherent approach for the
long term preservation of the existing European EO space data, ESA started
consultations with its member States in 2006 in order to develop the European
LTDP (Long Term Data Preservation) strategy which was presented at DOSTAG
(Data, Operations, Scientific and Technical Advisory Group) in 2007 and also
formed a LTDP Working Group (Jan 2008) within the GSCB (Ground Segment
Coordination Body) to define European LTDP Common Guidelines (in cooper-
ation with the European EO data stakeholders) and to promote them in CEOS
(Committee on Earth Observation Satellites) and GEO.
This group is defining an overall strategy for the long term preservation of all
European EO data, ensuring accessibility and usability for an unlimited time-
span, through a cooperative and harmonized collective approach among the EO
data owners (European LTDP Framework) by the application of European LTDP
Common Guidelines. Among these guidelines we should highlight at least the
following ones: (1) “Archived data shall contain all the elements necessary to
be accessed, used, understood and processed to obtain mission products to be
delivered to users”; (2) “Adoption of ISO 14721 - OAIS standard as the refer-
ence model and adoption of common archive data formats for AIPs (e.g. SAFE,
Standard Archive Format for Europe)”.
ESA member states, as part of ESA's mandatory activities, have currently
approved a 3 year initial LTDP programme with the aim to establish a full long
term data preservation concept and programme by 2011; ESA is now starting
the application of the European LTDP Common Guidelines to its own missions.
