SA51B-01
Modifying the Heliophysics Data Policy to Better Enable Heliophysics Research
The Heliophysics (HP) Science Data Management Policy, adopted by HP in June 2007, has helped to provide a structure for the HP data lifecycle. It provides guidelines for Project Data Management Plans and related documents, initiates Resident Archives to maintain data services after a mission ends, and outlines a route to the unification of data finding, access, and distribution through Virtual Observatories. Recently we have filled in missing pieces that assure more coherence and a home for the VxOs (through the "Heliophysics Data and Model Consortium"), and provide greater clarity with respect to long-term archiving. In particular, the new policy, which has been vetted with many community members, details the "Final Archives" that are to provide long-term data access. These are distinguished from RAs in that they provide little additional service beyond serving data, but critical to their success is that the final archival materials include calibrated data in useful formats such as one finds in CDAWeb and various ASCII or FITS archives. Having a clear goal for legacy products, to be detailed as part of the Mission Archive Plans presented at Senior Reviews, will help to avoid the situation so common in the past of having archival products that preserve bits well but not readily usable information. We hope to avoid the need for the large number of "data upgrade" projects that have been necessary in recent years.
SA51B-02 INVITED
A Network Enabled Platform for Canadian Space Science Data
The internet is an example of a pervasive disruptive technology that has transformed society on a global
scale. The term "cyberinfrastructure" refers to technology underpinning the collaborative aspect of large
science projects and is synonymous with terms such as e-Science, intelligent infrastructure, and/or e-
infrastructure. In the context of space science, a significant challenge is to exploit the internet and
cyberinfrastructure to form effective virtual organizations (VOs) of scientists that have common or agreed-
upon objectives. A typical VO is likely to include universities and government agencies specializing in types of
instrumentation (ground and/or space based), which in deployment produce large quantities of space data.
Such data is most effectively described by metadata, which if defined in a standard way, facilitates discovery
and retrieval of data over the internet by intelligent interfaces and cyberinfrastructure. One recent and
significant approach is SPASE, which is being developed by NASA as a data-standard for its Virtual
Observatories (VxOs) programs.
The space science community in Canada has recently formed a VO designed to complement the e-POP
microsatellite mission, and new ground-based observatories (GBOs) that collect data over a large fraction of
the Canadian land-mass. The VO includes members of the CGSM community (www.cgsm.ca), which is
funded operationally by the Canadian Space Agency. It also includes the UCLA VMO team, and scientists in
the NASA THEMIS mission. CANARIE (www.canarie.ca), the federal agency responsible for management,
design and operation of Canada's research internet, has recently recognized the value of cyberinfrastucture
through the creation of a Network-Enabled-Platforms (NEPs) program. An NEP for space science was funded
by CANARIE in its first competition.
When fully implemented, the Space Science NEP will consist of a front-end portal providing access to CGSM
data. It will utilize an adaptation of the SPASE-based registry developed by Ray Walker et. al at UCLA, along
with a common set of services and federation of CGSM data. An important aspect of the space science
NEP is the development of scientific workflows that allow users to more easily develop data analysis tools that
can be stored on their desktop for re-use. The presentation will include a high-level view of the methodology
and software architecture to be implemented through the development of the CANARIE NEP for space
science.
http://www.cssdp.ca
SA51B-03 INVITED
Using the Virtual Solar Observatory as a multifaceted research tool
The original premise behind the VxO movement was to provide a common interface to heteregenous datasets no matter the physical location of those datasets. This came with the implicit promise that the VxOs would help scientists to do science. This promise has been achieved to lesser and greater degrees and sometimes in ways that we didn't envisage. The current trend in Heliophsyics research is one that spans multiple instruments and often multiple physical realms, from the Sun to the earth. The VxOs are again helping scientists to do science by developing tools to allow VxOs to cross their specific physical regime and access and retrieve data from other VxOs serving their own particular regime. VxOs are also moving forward in providing research tools that allow large scale statistical studies. Using the VSO as an example I will demonstrate how VxOs continue to fulfil their original premise in new and innovative ways, provide tools for science research, and adapt to the challenges prresented to us by a mission such as SDO.
SA51B-04 INVITED
Solar Wind/Magnetospheric Research and the Role of Virtual Observatories
Magnetospheric research is dependent on information about the state of the Sun, the solar wind, and the Earth's magnetosphere. Responsibility for acquiring, processing, and distribution of the data characterizing these regions is delegated to agencies, missions, projects, and individuals. In many countries it has or is becoming standard policy to make data acquired with government resources publicly available. This has led to a plethora of databases each with a different user interface, different data formats, and different rules governing the use of data. For those unfamiliar with the location of existing data it is virtually impossible to locate the data needed for a particular study. The concept of a virtual observatory (VxO), where the "x" represents a particular discipline, has recently been developed to solve this problem. In principle a VxO provides "one stop shopping" by providing the user with pointers to a variety of existing resources that satisfy a specific user query. The eventual goal is to make it possible to download the desired data with a minimum of effort. In this paper we report our efforts to illustrate this presentation using the Virtual Magnetospheric Observatory to acquire data familiar to us from other sources. Our initial efforts were unsuccessful! We could not find the appropriate buttons on the web site; there was no high level description of how the system functions; we could not determine the appropriate language to use in formulating a query; the system was not able to identify misspelled words; there was no obvious way to edit a query. These and other problems with the existing system will be discussed in this presentation. Hopefully user feedback will lead to modifications that will make the system more transparent.
SA51B-05
Using the Virtual Heliospheric and Magnetospheric Observatories for geospace studies
Finding and retrieving space physics data is a rather daunting task even when the data are publicly available
on the Internet because there are thousands of relatively small and many large data sets stored in various
formats and accompanied often only by terse documentation. Virtual Heliospheric and Magnetospheric
Observatories (VHO and VMO) are being developed to help researches by creating a single point of uniform
discovery, access, and use of heliospheric (VHO) and magnetospheric (VMO) data. Available data can be
searched based on various criteria as, for example, spatial location, time of observation, measurement type,
parameter values, etc. The VHO and VMO also utilize event lists to quickly narrow down searches by specific
events, e.g. bow shock crossings, flux transfer events (FTEs) or CMEs/ICMEs.
We will demonstrate the utility of VHO/VMO for geospace studies by reprising some multi-spacecraft, multi-
instrument analyzes from the literature. For example, simultaneous
observations of earthward flow bursts and plasmoid ejection during magnetospheric substorms were
identified by visual inspection of several years of ISTP measurements by Slavin et al. [2002]. Using the
VHO/VMO we show how studies such as these can be carried out with substantial time savings and often with
the added value of accessing additional relevant data sets that would not have been available to scientist
performing the analysis.
http://vho.nasa.gov
http://vmo.nasa.gov
Slavin et al., Simultaneous observations of earthward flow bursts and plasmoid ejection during
magnetospheric substorms,
J. of Geophysical Research, 107 (A7), 10.1029/2000JA003501, 2002
SA51B-06 INVITED
Virtual Observatories: Requirements for Utility
The principal act that separates science from engineering is that of discovery. Virtual Observatories are a development with great potential for advancing our ability to do science by enabling us to do research effectively and to do research across disciplines. Access to data is one of the factors that enables discovery. A well-designed VO should enable discovery as well as providing for a uniform means by which data are accessed: thus, enabling discovery is the key challenge of a VO in fact it is and should be the principle that distinguishes a VO from a traditional archive. As the number of satellites in the Heliophysics Great observatory starts to decline due to the slower launch cadence and the reduction in funding for extended missions, it becomes more imperative that the community have the means to fully utilize and access the available resources. With the proliferation of low-cost computing and community-based models, cross-disciplinary studies become the new frontier. Many, if not the great majority of research papers are, at this time, confined to a particular discipline. Some of this "stove piping" may be due to the difficulty in accessing products from outside one's own discipline. One would hope and expect that VOs would address this. Two of the principal challenges associated with the vitality of the VOs, aside from the provision of the funds required to maintain the VOs, is 1) the limitation on the availability of data from non-NASA sources and 2) the need for some level of continued support for expertise on the data accessed through the VOs. The first issue is one of culture – some organizations support the view that the data belong to the PI whereas in Heliophysics "data rights" are curtailed. The second issue is to be addressed by the concept of the Resident Archive. This talk will provide an overview of the issues and challenges associated with VOs, Resident Archives, data rights, space missions, and instruments and their associated ground data processing software.
SA51B-07
ISIS topside-sounder Plasma-wave investigations as guides to desired Virtual Wave Observatory (VWO) data search capabilities
Many plasma-wave phenomena, observed by space-borne radio sounders, cannot be properly explained in terms of wave propagation in a cold plasma consisting of mobile electrons and infinitely massive positive ions. These phenomena include signals known as plasma resonances. The principal resonances at the harmonics of the electron cyclotron frequency, the plasma frequency, and the upper-hybrid frequency are well explained by the warm-plasma propagation of sounder-generated electrostatic waves. Other resonances have been attributed to sounder-stimulated plasma instability and non-linear effects, eigenmodes of cylindrical electromagnetic plasma oscillations, and plasma memory processes. Data from the topside sounders of the International Satellites for Ionospheric Studies (ISIS) program played a major role in these interpretations. A data transformation and preservation effort at the Goddard Space Flight Center has produced digital ISIS topside ionograms and a metadata search program that has enabled some recent discoveries pertaining to the physics of these plasma resonances. For example, data records were obtained that enabled the long-standing question (several decades) of the origin of the plasma resonance at the fundamental electron cyclotron frequency to be explained [Muldrew, Radio Sci., 2006]. These data-search capabilities, and the science enabled by them, will be presented as a guide to desired data search capabilities to be included in the Virtual Wave Observatory (VWO).