[CMC E-Poll Alert] IPDA

[Allan, PM (Peter)]

Folks,

I have been asked to be a member of the steering committee of the
Interplanetary Data Alliance (http://www.planetarydata.org/)

I will be attending a meeting at JPL in July and this will be a good
opportunity to advertise the capabilities of the relevant organisations
that I am working with. One thing I have been particularly asked to take
along is posters, so I would like to get the latest AstroGrid and CCSDS
ones at least.

This e-mail is to let you know of my involvement and to ask if you have
any issues that you would like me to raise in this forum.

According to it's web site, the IPDA's main purpose is to ease the
discovery, access and use of planetary data by world-wide scientist
regardless of which agency is collecting and distributing the data. The
initial focus is on internationalisation of the NASA Planetary Data
System, but data access and archive standards are also high on the
agenda.

The situation on easy access to distributed planetary data appears to be
lagging behind developments in other areas, largely due to NASA and ESA
each having their own systems and being reluctant to give them up. From
what I can judge so far, a lot of what is needed is available in related
domains, so I will be pushing for "no reinvention of wheels". 

Clearly the IVOA and AstroGrid have relevant standards and software to
offer for the space domain, although I expect that the NERC data grid
will be just as relevant when it comes to standards for data on
planetary surfaces and atmospheres. The ISO standards on geographic
information from TC211 may be relevant, if not directly applicable.

The IPDA is also interested in the long term preservation of data, so
the ISO OAIS standards, the Digital Curation Centre and CASPAR
(http://www.casparpreserves.eu/) will be of interest.

There is a suggestion that IPDA should become a working group of COSPAR,
although I understand this is still at the discussion stage.
 
This e-mail is going to a wide variety of people, so if you reply, I
suggest that you reply just to me, or to the appropriate subgroup.

Cheers

Peter
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Dr. Peter M. Allan
Head, Space Data Division
Space Science and Technology Department
Science and Technology Facilities Council
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
Harwell Science and Innovation Campus
Didcot
Oxfordshire OX11 0QX
England

e-mail: p.m.allan at rl.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (1235) 445723       fax: +44 (1235) 446667