During April 11-13, 1995, a Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) Science Advisory Panel Meeting was held at the EROS Data Center (EDC) in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The meeting was attended by a quorum of Panel members, as well as by participants and interested observers from EDC, NASA, JPL, and the EOSDIS Core System (ECS) contractor, Hughes Applied Information Systems.

Tuesday, April 11

DAAC Manager, Lynn Oleson, gave an overview presentation aimed at providing the Panel's new members with relevant background information about EOSDIS and EDC DAAC programs and activities. Action items from the September meeting were reviewed. Notably, the Panel examined and provided comments on:

• a new outline for a DAAC Science Support Plan;

• additional information on EOS electronic information options;

• upcoming conferences as candidates for presentations or exhibits describing EDC DAAC programs;

• issues related to publication of DAAC-generated technical papers;

• rationale for ingesting Shuttle Imaging Radar-B (SIR-B) and Seasat data at the DAAC and possible option of processing and archiving these data at the Alaska Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Facility;

• availability and cost of Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) data in the National Satellite Land Remote Sensing Data Archive;

• response from the NOAA Administrator on pricing policy for Landsat-7 data; and

• results of the "At Launch" Digital Elevation Model (DEM) meeting held in October, 1994, at NASA HQ.

Highlights of Instrument Team updates included:

• The ASTER Science Team has been charged with developing a strategy for prioritizing ASTER data acquisition, including defining the process by which, and from whom, data acquisition requests (DARs) will be submitted.

• The MODIS Science Team has been working on algorithm refinement and Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document (ATBD) revisions in recent months.

• As part of overall efforts to define future spaceborne SAR programs, NASA has published a National Research Council report titled, "Spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar: Current Status and Future Directions."

• As part of a comprehensive status report on Landsat-7, Darrel Williams, the Landsat-7 Project Scientist, asked the Panel to consider endorsing the concept of placing an X-band receiver at Fairbanks, Alaska by early 1998 for real-time downlink of Landsat data and as a back-up capability for EOS AM-1 data.

Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS) DAAC System Manager, Greg Hunolt, reported on ESDIS Project activities and issues. He reported that efforts are underway to develop a consistent set of user statistics across all DAACs, reflecting end-to-end Version 0 (V0) activities such as overall system Information Management System (IMS), local IMS, data distribution, etc. Work plans submitted by the DAACs for FY 1996 are due July 1 and will be reviewed by the EOSDIS Data Panel. EOS data access and pricing policy is still evolving, and it is not clear just when a final policy will be announced. It is not yet clear what the anticipated $5 billion to $8 billion cut in the NASA budget for the FY 1996-2000 period will mean for EOSDIS or for the DAACs. One way of dealing with budget reductions may be increasing the synergy between NASA and NOAA in areas of technology infusion and co-location of data centers.

Wednesday, April 12

EDC DAAC Project Scientist, Bryan Bailey, led the Panel in a short discussion aimed at bringing increased attention to the topic of DAAC interaction with, and support of, the EOS IDS investigations. Among Panel members, there exists differing opinions about what the relationship between the DAACs and IDS teams should be in terms of the generation, archiving, and distribution of products developed by those teams. Clarification of roles and responsibilities is needed, and the Panel directed the DAAC to seek such clarification, as well as clarification about the fundamental relationship between the DAAC and the Science Computing Facilities (SCFs).

Moshe Pniel, the ASTER Science Project's Product Generation System Technical Manager, provided the Panel with an overview of ASTER standard product generation software development. He described the objectives of and overall approach to the effort, as well as the fundamental goals for the Beta, Version 1, and Version 2 software releases. He characterized the scope of the effort in terms of the specific products being developed and the corresponding estimated lines of code, and he described the project's management approach and testing philosophy.

ECS contractor staff reviewed recent activities and future plans as they relate to development of the EOSDIS Core System. Topics and activities discussed included ECS Science Office objectives and responsibilities; the near-term ECS development schedule, particularly as it relates to the EDC DAAC; a summary of the "Evaluation Package Four" experience; user modeling, the Ad Hoc Working Group on Production; and plans for data migration. Also, the EDC DAAC Manager, Lynn Oleson, described to the Panel the DAAC's strategy for enhancing its interactions with the ECS contractor.

Lynn Oleson and DAAC Group Leaders for Engineering & Development, Data Set Acquisition and Ingest, Mission Support, and Data & Information Services reviewed the status of DAAC activities and presented preliminary plans for FY 1996. Points of note from the presentations follow.

Efforts to establish a new DAAC organizational structure are partially complete. Technical groups have been established with designated leaders and growing numbers of dedicated staff, and the formal process to establish an EOS Systems Branch at EDC has been initiated. The DAAC Data Distribution System (DDS) is taking shape. The operational system uses a new digital linear tape (DLT) jukebox, Silicon Graphics server, and an AMASS file management system. Interim electronic distribution capabilities have been implemented for distribution of some data sets.

The DAAC is beginning to seriously address V0-to-V1 transition with the ESDIS Project and ECS. Progress with data set ingest since the last meeting was less than anticipated due to a number of factors, including staffing delays and extended learning curves. Ingest of all the Landsat Pathfinder data sets is expected to be complete in FY 1995, however. 46,000 scenes of global land 1-km AVHRR data have been acquired and archived. Seven global composites and 36 North American composites have been produced by the DAAC.

Tangible progress has been made toward the release and utilization of the Defense Mapping Agency's Digital Terrain Elevation Data, and 1 km DEMs for Africa and Japan have been staged on Internet. Efforts continue on schedule for transitioning operational processing of AirSAR data from JPL to the EDC DAAC in FY 1996. SIR-C Survey data are now available from the DDS via FTP and the DAAC home page.

Science algorithm integration and test planning activities are increasing with the hiring of new DAAC staff and increased interaction with the ASTER and MODIS teams. The DAAC User Support Office has been processing about 20 requests per month for DAAC data sets submitted through the IMS and off-line sources. However, requests for AVHRR 10-day global composites, SIR-C Survey data, and 30 arc-second Digital Charts of the World DEM data from the DDS via the DAAC home page have averaged, respectively, about 80, 500, and 50 per month. The user profile on these latter requests shows that 29 percent are foreign, 25 percent from academia, and 21 percent from the private sector.

Thursday, April 13

The Panel spent substantial time reviewing its recommendations and the action items that had been assigned during the meeting. In addition, Panel members discussed the overall direction and long-term goals of the DAAC, and offered constructive observations and suggestions. Lynn Oleson summarized the status of the DAAC's FY 1995 budget and offered preliminary projections for FY 1996. A Panel member for one of the IDS teams summarized recent and evolving plans to hold a workshop, probably late this year, to address a variety of issues related to DAAC/SCF responsibilities and relationships.

The following is a selection of Panel recommendations and meeting action items summarized prior to adjournment:

1. The ESDIS Project should establish a mechanism, e.g., a "technical series," whereby papers written by DAAC personnel, including DAAC-related USGS publications, could be published in HTML format via the DAAC home page.

2. A broader community of Earth scientists than just those affiliated with ASTER should be able to submit ASTER data acquisition requests (DARs).

3. Installation of the X-band receiver at Fairbanks, currently planned for 2000, should be moved ahead to 1998 for use as a real-time Landsat data downlink and EOS AM-1 back-up.

4. Landsat-7 data acquisition policy should include provision for submission of DARs by the general user community.

5. Panel to send a letter to the EOS Program asking for "bottom-up" direction concerning DAAC responsibilities for producing, archiving, and distributing IDS team data products. Include reference to need to address fundamental issue of the relationship between SCFs and the DAACs.

6. The DAAC and ECS contractor to report to the Panel, at the next meeting, on past and current prototypes; include a proposal for an end-to-end ECS prototype for land-related data.

7. The DAAC to present a "strawman proposal" for EDC DAAC data set migration at the next meeting.

8. DAAC to increase involvement in the Science Working Group for the AM Platform (SWAMP) sub-group on gridding and report to the Panel on issues and activities.

9. Building on the revised outline and incorporating meeting discussion, the DAAC to complete a draft of the EDC DAAC Science Support Plan that provides a vision of where the DAAC wants to be at launch of AM-1.

The period September 18-20, 1995, was selected as the tentative date for the next meeting.

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