As dreamers and amateur astronomers look to the light-speckled night sky for answers, an increasing number of professional scientific researchers are looking at data that is all-but-as-plentiful as the stars to guide discovery.
More specifically, they are looking to The Earth Observing Systems Data and Information System (EOSDIS), a core capability in NASA’s Earth Science Data Systems Program that ingests, archives and makes earth science data available to the worldwide scientific community. In a recent development, Raytheon (News - Alert)—which has contributed resources and efforts to the EOSDIS since 1992—has received its third competitively awarded contract valued at $240 million to operate and develop this astounding data management and access tool.
"For more than twenty years Raytheon has partnered with NASA Goddard on developing innovative earth science data solutions," said Dave Wajsgras, President of Raytheon Information, Intelligence and Services. "Our support enables important research used to analyze climate data to better understand how to protect our planet."
As of 2014, EOSDIS managed 8,292 unique data set requests, two million unique users, and 27.9 terabytes per day of data distributed to end users. Much of the data is gathered via NASA and international satellite missions, broadcast to base, and eventually stored in EOSDIS data centers. Raytheon is then tasked with making all of this data available online, where it can be used for research and education, among other beneficiaries. The recent contract will ensure that Raytheon continues to maintain and operate EOSDIS, so it may continue to serve the scientific community.
"The latest contract award demonstrates Raytheon's ability to deliver innovation on a key data processing system that has grown exponentially to 9.1 petabytes of data,” said Todd Probert, vice president for Mission Modernization and sustainment for Raytheon IIS. “Our focus is on making an enormous amount of data –the equivalent of 910 copies of Wikipedia—available to researchers any time so they can continue their important work."
To put that into perspective, if all Wikipedia articles were to be printed and bound—excluding all images and graphics—we would have approximately 7,600 volumes, each containing 700 pages (according to Michael Mandiberg, the official expert on printing Wikipedia). Multiply this by 910, and you end up with an extremely large number—nearly seven million volumes.
That’s a lot of data to manage; in fact, it’s 1,383.2 times more volumes than visible stars from Earth (5,000) with the naked eye—but Raytheon appears to be up to the task.
To learn more about the EOSDIS, click HERE.