NASA Issues New Awards for Planetary Data System

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Oct 09, 2015, 03:21 ET

GREENBELT, Md., Oct. 9, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA has selected six science data nodes to archive and distribute science data from the Agency's Planetary Data System (PDS). The total award is $45 million for five years, with $8.8 million for year one.

A resource for scientists around the world, the PDS is an archive of data products from NASA planetary missions. The Science Nodes are discipline-based active archives that interface between NASA missions delivering data and the science community, which uses those data sets.

The nodes that were selected are:

The Small Bodies Node, led by Dr. Michael A'Hearn, University of Maryland, College Park
The Ring-Moon Systems Node, led by Dr. Mark Showalter, SETI Institute, Mountain View, California
The Atmospheres Node, led by Dr. Nancy Chanover, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces
The Cartography and Imaging Science Node, led by Dr. Lisa Gaddis, U. S. Geological Survey, Flagstaff, Arizona
The Planetary Plasma Interactions Node, led by Dr. Ray Walker, the University of California at Los Angeles
The Geosciences Node, led by Dr. Ray Arvidson, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri

"The selection of the new Science Nodes should increase the ability of the PDS to respond to the current needs of the planetary science community," said Dr. Ed Grayzeck, head of the Solar System Exploration Data Services Office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The Project Office at Goddard Space Flight Center will implement the awards starting in FY 2016.

The Planetary Data System is sponsored by NASA's Science Mission Directorate. All PDS-produced products are peer-reviewed, well documented, and easily accessible via a system of online catalogs organized by planetary disciplines. The PDS is a member of, and works closely with, the International Planetary Data Alliance.

For more information on the PDS, visit: http://pds.nasa.gov

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SOURCE NASA