SA53A-1559
Recent Advances of the SPASE Data Model.
The Space Physics Archive Search and Extract (SPASE) data model is being adopted by virtual
observatories and data providers world-wide. Since the release of version 1.2.1 of the data model in March
2008 it has been used to describe a large variety of data resources. This experience has generated
feedback to the SPASE consortium which has been actively working to improve the data model. The SPASE
consortium has strived to enrich the expressiveness of the data model and simplify its structure. This has
resulted in many improvements to the data model. Release of version 1.3.1 of the data model represents the
current metadata standard for the heliophysics community. We will discuss the recent decisions affecting the
evolution of the model, describe the advances and tools improving the usability, and present a vision for
future direction. The usage of SPASE by the Virtual Observatories and in the Heliophysics data environment
as a whole is a major part of this vision. The SPASE consortium is committed to address the needs of the
community and actively seeks advice and feedback from data providers, researchers and general users.
http://www.spase-group.org
SA53A-1560
A View Of A Unified Heliophysics Data Environment
Recent developments in discipline Virtual Observatories (VOs) and services has led to advances in search, retrieval and access of Heliophysics data. However, at present, many of these utilities exist in isolation awaiting the ultimate goal of this effort - the use of the Heliophysics data environment as a collective whole. We present our efforts to use existing standards (SPASE) to create a query language that will enable a common interface for most VOs and services. Thus, enabling access via one software toolkit, decreasing development time and improving overall efficacy. In particular, we demonstrate the results of this effort when applied to several services in the analysis of a real-world space physics research question. Scientific results are presented in conjunction with the benefits of our approach.
SA53A-1561
Services, Perspectives and Directions of the Space Physics Data Facility
The multi-mission data and orbit services of NASA's Space Physics Data Facility (SPDF) project offer unique
capabilities supporting science of the Heliophysics Great Observatory and that are highly complementary to
other services now evolving in the international heliophysics data environment. The VSPO (Virtual Space
Physics Observatory) service is an active portal to a wide range of distributed data sources. CDAWeb
(Coordinated Data Analysis Web) offers plots, listings and file downloads for current data from many missions
across the boundaries of missions and instrument types. CDAWeb now includes extensive new data from
STEREO and THEMIS, plus new ROCSAT IPEI data, the latest data from all four TIMED instruments and
high-resolution data from all DE-2 experiments. SSCWeb, Helioweb and our 3D Animated Orbit Viewer
(TIPSOD) provide position data and identification of spacecraft and ground conjunctions. OMNIWeb, with its
new extension to 1- and 5-minute resolution, provides interplanetary parameters at the Earth's bow shock.
SPDF maintains NASA's CDF (Common Data Format) standard and a range of associated tools including
format translation services. These capabilities are all now available through web services based APIs, one
element in SPDF's ongoing work to enable heliophysics community development of Virtual discipline
Observatories (e.g. VITMO). We will demonstrate our latest data and capabilities, review the lessons we
continue to learn in what science users need and value in this class of services, and discuss our current
thinking to the future role and appropriate focus of the SPDF effort in the evolving and increasingly
distributed heliophysics data environment.
http://spdf.gsfc.nasa.gov
SA53A-1562
A Data Services Upgrade for Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) Data
Since early in 1998, NASA's Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) spacecraft has provided continuous
measurements of solar wind, interplanetary magnetic field, and energetic particle activity from L1, located
approximately 0.01 AU sunward of Earth. The spacecraft has enough fuel to stay in orbit about L1 until
~2024. The ACE Science Center (ASC) provides access to ACE data, and performs level 1 and browse
data processing for the science instruments. Thanks to a NASA Data Services Upgrade grant, we have
recently retooled our legacy web interface to ACE data, enhancing data subsetting capabilities and improving
online plotting options. We have also integrated a new application programming interface (API) and we are
working to ensure that it will be compatible with emerging Virtual Observatory (VO) data services standards.
The new API makes extensive use of metadata created using the Space Physics Archive Search and Extract
(SPASE) data model. We describe these recent improvements to the ACE Science Center data services, and
our plans for integrating these services into the VO system.
http://www.srl.caltech.edu/ACE/ASC
SA53A-1563
The Yohkoh Legacy Archive
Yohkoh was a Japan/US/UK mission for the study of high energy processes on the sun. Scientific
operation extended from September 1991 until 14 December 2001, nearly an entire solar activity cycle.
Observations included full-disk soft and hard x-ray imaging, hard x-ray spectroscopy, and high resolution
flare spectroscopy in S XV, Ca XIX, Fe XXV and Fe XXVI from the Bent Crystal Spectrometer (BCS). The
Yohkoh Legacy Archive (YLA) brings together all Yohkoh observational data along with extensive
documentation required for a full understanding of instrumentation, mission operations, and data reduction
and correction. Extensive meta-data aid the user in efficiently accessing the data base.
Creation of the YLA has been the work of 8 years; the top objective has been to present the extensive Yohkoh database in a form fully usable for scientists or students who are unfamiliar with Yohkoh
instrumentation. The YLA may be accessed at http://solar.physics.montana.edu/ylegacy or through the
Virtual Solar Observatory (VSO), although the VSO capability is still under development. Data from the Yohkoh hard x-ray instruments and BCS are presented in flare list formats. The Soft X-ray Telescope (SXT)
images are available in quantitative and movie formats. This long, uniform, archive of SXT images is
especially useful for solar cycle studies as well as high resolution soft x-ray flare studies. Examples of YLA
data products and research enabled by the archive will be presented.
http://solar.physics.montana.edu/ylegacy
SA53A-1564
AMDA, Automated Multi-Dataset Analysis: A web-based service provided by the CDPP
AMDA (Automated Mutli-Dataset Analysis), a new data analysis service, recently opened at CDPP. AMDA is
developed according to the Virtual Observatory paradigm : it is a web-based facilities for analyzing on-line
space physics data coming from its own local database as well as remote ones (CDAWeb, CAA, MAPSKP).
This tool allows the user to perform on-line classical manipulations such as data visualization, parameter
computation or data extraction. AMDA also offers innovative functionalities such as event search on the
content of the data in either visual or automated way, generation, use and management of time-tables.
These time-tables can be seen as a brick of the up-coming Virtual Observatories in space physics : they
indeed convey a lot of information in a condensed way and can be easily exchanged between databases.
The general functionalities of AMDA and scientific use cases will be presented with a particular focus on what
scientists can gain from inter-base information exchanges.
http://cdpp.cesr.fr
SA53A-1565
The Virtual Observatory Experience – Meeting User and Data Provider Needs
A Virtual Observatory serves a very diverse community that consists of data providers, information specialists, project administrators, agencies, researchers, educators, students, and the public. Each group has different needs and expectations. Meeting all the needs and expectations is an extreme challenge and in many ways is not feasible. However, by laying down a foundation of standards and well defined services will enable us to create group oriented portals based on a common set of core technologies which will help us progress toward meeting these requirements. The core technologies include metadata standards, query languages, services, management procedures, interfaces, and value-added functions. Each of these technologies must integrate with one or more of the other technologies. Therefore, a holistic view of the system is necessary. We explore the technologies and functions of NASA's Virtual Magnetospheric Observatory (VMO) to illustrate the core technologies which enable serving diverse groups and discuss where the VMO is today and what to expect tomorrow.
SA53A-1566
The Science Centered Approach of the Virtual Magnetospheric Observatory
The Virtual Magnetospheric Observatory (VMO) has been established to aid the magnetospheric research community. To fulfill this charge: 1) The VMO must locate, describe and register resources pertinent to magnetospheric research. 2) The VMO must make it as easy as possible to discover and extract those resources which can used to answer a research question. To accomplish the first task the VMO has enlisted active magnetospheric researchers to indentify existing resources and set priorities for their inclusion. These same researchers aid in describing the resources and registering them with the VMO. The VMO uses the Space Physics Archive Search and Extract (SPASE) standards as a core technology. To accomplish the second task we are engaging researchers to use the system and solicit their feedback. This feedback is used to guide the development of the system and the design of desired improvements. This dialog has been extremely useful in determining the science drivers for the VMO. We discuss the current state of the VMO, data registration schedule, planned improvements, and how the researcher's perspective influences our direction. Current activities related to the addition of value-added services and interaction with resident archives also will be addressed.
SA53A-1567
A Long-term Ring Current Measure Created by Using the VMO MANGO Service Package
A set of computational routines called MANGO (Magnetogram Analysis for the Network of Geomagnetic
Observatories) is utilized to calculate a new measure of magnetic storm activity for the years 1932 to the near
present. The MANGO routines are part of an effort to enhance data services available to users of the
Heliophysics VxOs, specifically for the Virtual Magnetospheric Observatory (VMO). The community can utilize
MANGO to derive value-added data products and images suitable for publication via the VMO web site.
MANGO routines will be demonstrated through their application to study magnetic storms, a field of research
that began in 1828 when von Humboldt launched an investigation of observations taken simultaneously from
magnetic field stations spread around the Earth. The defining signature of magnetic storms is a worldwide
decrease of the horizontal component of the magnetic field caused by fluctuations in the strength of the ring
current. In the 1940's, Bartel pushed for deriving an index to measure the strength of magnetic storms.
Progress intensified during the International Geophysical Year leading to the definition of the Dst index.
The definitive Dst index is calculated at WDC-C2 for Geomagnetism in Kyoto by using a derivation
scheme certified by Division V of IAGA. The Dst index time series spans the years 1957 to present with
a cadence equal to 1-hr. The new data set we will present is a magnetic storm measure that is similar to the
Dst index though it is calculated by using MANGO and a method that differs slightly from the official
scheme. The MANGO data service package is based on a set of IDL routines that decompose ground
magnetic field observations to isolate secular, diurnal, and disturbance variations of the magnetic field
station-by-station. Each MANGO subroutine has been written in modular fashion to allow "plug and play"-
style flexibility and each has been designed to account for failure modes and noisy data so that the programs
will run to completion producing as much derived data as possible. The new magnetic storm measure is
based on 1-hr data from the same ground stations used to calculate the official Dst index and extends
the historical record of storm intensity by 25 years.
http://mango.igpp.ucla.edu
SA53A-1568
Virtual Energetic Particle Observatory (VEPO)
The Virtual Energetic Particle Observatory (VEPO) focuses on improved discovery, access, and usability of heliospheric energetic particle and ancillary data products from selected spacecraft and sub-orbital instruments of the heliophysics data environment. The energy range of interest extends over the full range of particle acceleration from keV energies of suprathermal seed particles to GeV energies of galactic cosmic ray particles. Present spatial coverage is for operational and legacy spacecraft operating from the inner to the outer heliosphere, e.g. from measurements by the two Helios spacecraft to 0.3 AU to the inner heliosheath region now being traversed by the two Voyager spacecraft. This coverage will eventually be extended inward to ten solar radii by the planned NASA solar probe mission and at the same time beyond the heliopause into the outer heliosheath by continued Voyager operations. The geospace fleet of spacecraft providing near-Earth interplanetary measurements, selected magnetospheric spacecraft providing direct measurements of penetrating interplanetary energetic particles, and interplanetary cruise measurements from planetary spacecraft missions further extend VEPO resources to the domain of geospace and planetary interactions. Ground-based (e.g., neutron monitor) and high-altitude suborbital measurements can expand coverage to the highest energies of galactic cosmic rays affected by heliospheric interaction and of solar energetic particles. Science applications include investigation of solar flare and coronal mass ejection events, acceleration and transport of interplanetary particles within the inner heliosphere, cosmic ray interactions with planetary surfaces and atmospheres, sources of suprathermal and anomalous cosmic ray ions in the outer heliosphere, and solar cycle modulation of galactic cosmic rays. Robotic and human exploration, and eventual habitation, of planetary and space environments beyond the Earth require knowledge of radiation hazards informed by VEPO data resources. The VEPO project has completed the first year of work to define science requirements, to document and register selected data products in SPASE format while evolving SPASE for increased applicability to VEPO data, and to support enhanced discovery and access for these products through the evolving data query and middleware system of the Virtual Heliospheric Observatory (VHO). The VEPO team operates as a heliophysics focus group for energetic particle data resources in partnership with VHO and also leverages existing data services of NASA's Space Physics Data Facility. We invite comments from the U.S. and international data provider and user communities on review of the current VEPO/VHO user interface, on directions for future evolution of VEPO and supporting data systems including VHO and SPDF, and on relations to other elements of the heliophysics virtual observatory environment.
SA53A-1569
A Service with Uniform Access to Granule Content for Heliophysics Datasets
We present a prototype service offering unified access to space physics data content. Our focus is the time
series data cataloged by the now operational Virtual Observatories (VxOs) within NASA's heliosphysics
community. While the VxOs largely focus on data discovery, our focus is uniform access to granule content
for energetic particle, plasma, and magnetic field datasets. Given a dataset name and a time range, the
service returns the requested subset of data content in a format that is identical for products of a particular
measurement type, i.e., all energetic particle datasets will resemble each other in format, all plasma data will
be identically formatted, etc. The prototype service offers key datasets from the Virtual Heliospheric
Observatory (VHO), the Virtual Magnetospheric Observatory (VMO), and the the Virtual Space Physics
Observatory (VSPO). We discuss the use as well as the design of the service, including its relationship to
SPASE metadata. Also, visualization for the output of the service is presented using Autoplot
(http://www.autoplot.org). We conclude with an outline describing how this prototype could be extended from
its current capacity (dozens of datasets) to a much larger capacity of hundreds of datasets.
http://sd-
www.jhuapl.edu/datashop/dataservice
SA53A-1570
WWW.NMDB.EU: The real-time Neutron Monitor database -- one year later
In January 2007 the NMDB project, which is supported by the 7th framework program of the European Commission, commenced. Nearly one year after the project start we have several Neutron Monitor stations that are sending their data in real-time to a publicly available prototype database in a common format. We have developed applications that make use of the real-time cosmic ray measurements for example for space weather applications and dose calculations at airplane altitudes. An overview of the project status as well as instructions on how to use the available data will be given. Operators of other Neutron Monitor stations are welcome to submit their data to NMDB, detailed instructions on how to join the network will also be given.
SA53A-1571
The Virtual Radiation Belt Observatory: Progress and Plans
The first major release of the Virtual Radiation Belt Observatory (ViRBO) is presented. ViRBO is a virtual observatory which allows access to and use of data and tools for radiation belt scientists. Data sets include data from the SAMPEX, GOES, POES, LANL GEO, Polar, and GPS satellites. A number of new data sets, not previously available, are available from the HEO-1, HEO-3, CRRES, SCATHA, OV1-19, ICO, S3-3, and OV3- 3 spacecraft. Scientist-contributed model data include that of the radiation belt content index, a geostationary plasma density and temperature reanalysis data set, and a four-decade-long set of time series of key inputs to modern empirical magnetic field models. In collaboration with the Geospace Environment Modeling Radiation Belt Climatology Focus Group, ViRBO has synthesized and created a data set containing a large collection of data relevant to climatological and statistical studies. Data are served in a number of ways, including from a basic FTP site and an OPeNDAP server. Visualizations of data are created using Autoplot, which is a spin-off project of ViRBO. Metadata search, editing, and access are provided through VxOware, another spin-off project of ViRBO that is in preparation for general release.
SA53A-1572
The Virtual Model Repository
The Virtual Model Repository is a newly funded VxO (Virtual Observatory) which plans to integrate computational model results with observed data by facilitating visualization, data/model comparisons, and independent interpretation of model results. We will give an overview of the VMR project and its progress as well as examples of its use. Specifically, we will demonstrate searching for and selecting a CCMC computation model. Then, using other VxO APIs, we will pull in relevant observed satellite data for the modeled time period and location. Finally, we will provide visualization of the relative locations of the data with some data/model comparisons.
SA53A-1573
The Virtual Wave Observatory (VWO)
Heliophysics wave data are currently not easily searchable by computers, making identifying pertinent wave
data features for analyses and cross comparisons difficult and laborious. Since wave data analysis requires
specialized knowledge about waves, which spans the spectrum of microphysics to macrophysics, researchers
having varied expertise cannot easily use wave data. To resolve these difficulties and to allow wave data to
contribute more fully to Heliophysics research, we are developing a Virtual Wave Observatory (VWO) whose
goal is to enable all Heliophysics wave data to become searchable, understandable and usable by the
Heliosphysics community. The VWO objective is to enable search of multiple and distributed wave data (from
both active and passive measurements). This presentation provides and overview of the VWO, a new VxO
component within the emerging distributed Heliophysics data and model environment.
http://vwo.nasa.gov
SA53A-1574
Registering Active and Passive IMAGE RPI Datasets with the Virtual Wave Observatory
Development of the Virtual Wave Observatory (VWO) for acquired active/passive plasma wave and radiation datasets will be a significant step forward for the Heliophysics community in its efforts to make wave-specific science data searchable, understandable, and usable. The first phase of the VWO project commenced in September 2008 with the goal of converting existing custom database storing wave data acquired by the Radio Plasma Imager (RPI) on the NASA IMAGE satellite into the VxO realm and, specifically, the SPASE Data Model. The RPI dataset comprises 1.2 million active and 0.8 million passive stepped-frequency measurements whose exploration incurs substantial expense of data search and expert interpretation. Our attention is drawn to the ability of the VWO not only to organize numeric and display data records in the SPASE-compatible manner, but most importantly, provide the essential means to capture the wave research community knowledge in accompanying metadata so as to let users understand the VWO data collections and search them by phenomena and context conditions. To that end, we pursue to extend the SPASE model to include wave-relevant terms and to develop a VWO annotation service to provide searchable data interpretations to the scientists who may not be a wave expert. The SPASE Data Model provides several means to describe data sets in a unified manner, forging them together in a three large categories, (1) numeric data, (2) display data, and (3) catalogs. Whereas numeric data resources simply point to the instrument data, the other two categories refer to the presentation of derived and interpreted information. We consider images of the RPI data as derived products that required investment in time and effort to create, especially if their author provided interpretation of visible signatures and optimized the visualization settings to highlight the signatures. When such interpretations are available, they can be used to further group RPI data in categories and build SPASE Catalogs correspondingly. The paper discusses lessons learned from the process of adopting the SPASE nomenclature and architecture in order to organize RPI data into a valid VWO data resource. In particular, we concentrated on a SPASE Granule concept to establish a VWO service that returns a list of qualifying data granules when queried with a set of search parameters, including start and stop times, type of phenomenon, measurement settings, etc, with the ultimate, enabling goal of letting Heliophysics community to productively use wave data as part of their research.
SA53A-1575
Performing Science Research with the Virtual ITM Observatory
The Virtual ITM Observatory (VITMO) is a system that integrates data providers and other virtual
observatories together to give the appearance of a seamless system. This seamless appearance allows the
user to create a virtual observing system dedicated to the individual's research interests. VITMO has reached
operational status with additional capabilities and datasets being rolled out over time. The design of the
Virtual ITM Observatory (VITMO) was developed out of a series of use cases for ITM science data analysis.
To enhance the capability of the scientist in studying the ITM region and its response to energetic inputs as a
system, the need existed for an ability to approach problems using coordinated observations. This provided
the basis for developing tools to identify coordinated observations, geophysics condition based searches,
and an ability to provide these capabilities across multiple data sets. This talk will focus on examples of how
these capabilities allow the scientist to perform "what-if" based searches of data for analysis along with a
discussion of the types of scientific analysis that may be possible through this system.
http://vitmo.jhuapl.edu
SA53A-1576
Implementing SPASE Metadata into the Virtual ITM Observatory
SPASE (Space Physics Archive Search and Extract) is a consortium of space physics users from a wide
variety of institutions. This consortium is in the process of developing and updating a metadata specification
for space physics products. Most Virtual Observatories are using SPASE as their source of information.
Since SPASE uses XML, which is hierarchical, systems based upon SPASE tend to express themselves in a
similar hierarchical manner. Often, knowledge of the data and its structure is needed in order to answer
many questions.
VITMO (Virtual Ionosphere Thermosphere Mesosphere Observatory) does not use SPASE internally, instead
VITMO uses a relational database which allows the user to search based on scientific concepts, without
apriori knowledge of the structure of the data. VITMO also has an architecture and metadata structure that
predates the SPASE specification. SPASE, however, is the interlingua of the VO community.
We will show how we have translated between the VITMO internal metadata structure and the SPASE
metadata specification. This presentation will focus on the value in adopting SPASE and lessons learned in
implementing it.
http://www.spase-
group.org; http://vitmo.jhuapl.edu
SA53A-1577
Leveraging Capabilities in the Community: CDAWeb Data and Services within VITMO
The NASA heliophysics program has selected a set of Virtual science-discipline-centered Observatory (VxO)
efforts now becoming operational. The VxOs will allow researchers to view data from individual missions,
from existing multi-mission data services and distributed sources of data as an integrated resource still
closely tied to the science expertise behind these data collections. In this presentation, we will show how the
Virtual Ionosphere-Thermosphere-Mesosphere Observatory (VITMO) working jointly with the Space Physics
Data Facility (SPDF) has attached the extensive existing ITM-relevant data flows and services of SPDF's
CDAWeb into VITMO's interface and software framework, allowing direct access to CDAWeb plot and listing
services seamlessly with the increasingly wide range of other ITM data and graphics accessible through
VITMO.
http://vitmo.jhuapl.edu
SA53A-1578
Enabling Science Research with Coordinated Data From SuperDARN and VITMO
One of the important capabilities introduced with Virtual Observatories is the ability to seamlessly obtain data
from multiple sites/instruments at simultaneous times. This facilitates coordinated research, particularly
involving ground and satellite based data sets. In this presentation we will show how the ground based
SuperDARN network data have been integrated into the Virtual ITM Observatory (VITMO). These data can
be used with coordinated observations from satellites (e.g. TIMED). In this presentation we will show how
coordinated data sets can be selected through the VITMO interface and all products downloaded to the user
in a single zip file, greatly facilitating coordinated research. We will show how new elements from SuperDARN
have been brought over into the VITMO interface allowing for the full fidelity provided by SuperDARN to be
available for data selection through VITMO as well. We will also demonstrate possible future data products
that can be generated using VITMO to combine multiple data sets.
http://superdarn.jhuapl.edu http://vitmo.jhuapl.edu
SA53A-1579
Heliophysics Event List Manager (HELM)
The key organizing element for most Heliophysics research is time: times when an "event" of a given
character occur or time spans when some condition is true. A list of such times may be created through a
hands-on science analysis process for a specific research project (e.g., a list of bow-shock crossing times for
a study of properties of the bow shock) or may be generated through automated services (e.g., times when
the observed interplanetary magnetic field at Earth is southward by >2 nT). We are developing a
Heliophysics Event List Management service (HELM) that will improve queries and enable annotating and
intersecting lists of events across a full range of Heliophysics data sources, both published and dynamically
generated. HELM lists will be kept in a standard (but expandable) XML format, keyed to appropriate SPASE
terms. The lists and list intersections are passed directly through a HELM user interface or to intermediate
services via a HELM API. This will be a major improvement over how scientists manually generate, manage
and share lists of observations and is an important capability to leverage the VxOs. For example, starting
from the HELM master list or from individual query services, you could query OMNIweb for times meeting
some set of geophysical states and pass the list to the list server. From within SSCweb, you can find when
spacecraft are in suitable regions of space and determine intersections of the two lists with the HELM list
service. Finally send that list of times and spacecraft to VMO for data retrieval, plotting or statistics. You
could then publish a useful list for others to use and allow others to add or comment. The various VxOs and
SPDF (CDAWeb, SSCWeb, OMNIweb) are all collaborating on this effort.
http://helm.gsfc.nasa.gov
SA53A-1580
A Distributed Processing and Analysis System for Heliophysic Events
With several Virtual Observatories now under active development, the time is ripe to consider how they will
interact to enable integrated studies that span the full range of Heliophysics. We present a solution that
builds upon components of the Heliophysics Event Knowledgebase (HEK) being developed for the Solar
Dynamics Observatory and the Heliophysics Event List Manager (HELMS), recently selected as part of the
NASA VxO program. A Heliophysics Event Analysis and Processing System (HEAPS) could increase the
scientific productivity of Heliophysics data by increasing the visibility of relevant events contained within them
while decreasing the incremental costs of incorporating more events in research studies. Here we present the
relevant precursors to such a system and show how it could operate within the Heliophysics Data
Environment.
http://helio-informatics.org