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Title
Proceedings of the Symposium on Global and Environmental Monitoring

DEVELOPMENT OF THE DATA AND INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR THE EARTH
OBSERVING SYSTEM (EOS)
E. G. Njoku*
Earth and Space Sciences Division
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Pasadena, CA 91109, USA
G. W. Hunolt
G. H. Ludwig
Earth Science and Applications Division
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Washington, DC 20546, USA
T. T. Taylor
Earth Observing System Project Office
Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
ABSTRACT
The Earth Observing System (EOS) is the centerpiece of NASA's participation in the
U.S. Global Change Research Program. The goals of the EOS mission are to provide
an observing system to acquire global Earth science data on a long-term, sustained
basis, and to provide the capabilities for processing these data into scientifi
cally validated products. These processed data will in turn provide the basis for
studies of Earth system science - the physical process studies, global modeling,
and environmental monitoring which are essential for understanding and predicting
global change. A central requirement of the EOS program is the development and
implementation of a comprehensive data and information system which will provide
the Earth science community with easy, affordable, and reliable access to the full
suite of Earth science data and products from the Eos mission.
The EOS Data and Information System (EOSDIS) will provide capabilities for command
and control of the EOS instruments on NASA's polar-orbiting platforms, with first
platform launch scheduled for 1997. EOSDIS active archive facilities will handle
the processing, archiving, and distribution of data for the duration of the fif
teen year EOS mission. The early EOSDIS design and development activities are
discussed here, with reference to a candidate architectural framework, existing
capabilities, and transition steps towards full implementation of the final dis
tributed system.
KEY WORDS: Data, Information, Earth observation, Remote sensing
1 EOS MISSION
1.1 Historical Perspective
The EOS mission is a continuation of a series of
NASA Earth observations missions carried out
over the past two decades. In recent years the
launches and operations of Seasat (1978),
Nimbus-7 (1978), SIR-B (1984), and ERBS (1984)
missions, to name just a few, have provided a
strong foundation of spaceborne remote sensing
data for studies of the Earth's oceans, atmo
sphere, and land surfaces. In the coming years,
prior to the first platform launch of EOS, NASA
plans include the launches of ATLAS (1991, -),
TOMS (1991, -) , UARS (1991), LAGEOS (1991),
TOPEX (1992), SIR-C/X-SAR (1992, -), Sea-WiFS
(1993), and NSCAT (1995). These spaceborne mis
sions, together with operational (NOAA), commer
cial (Landsat), and international space
missions, and a supporting program of aircraft,
balloon, ground, and laboratory experiments,
will provide the basis on which data from the
EOS mission will build (NASA, 1988a) . In this
context, EOS may be viewed as providing improve
ments and continuity for existing measurements
in addition to providing new observations of
phenomena that have not previously been mea
sured. In addition, EOS will provide a compre
hensive, global, mapping capability for these
measurements, which will remain in place for at
least fifteen years to enable a more detailed
and complete understanding of our global envi
ronment (NASA, 1988b). The EOS Data and Infor
mation System (EOSDIS) constitutes the in
frastructure of the EOS mission, and will pro
vide scientists and managers with access to the
full suite of capabilities necessary to acquire,
process, store, analyze, and distribute EOS
data, as well as access to archives containing
non-EOS data. Major challenges for EOSDIS lie
in providing a complete information system that
can accommodate the high data rates and data
volumes from EOS, in improving the productivity
of scientists in extracting new knowledge from
the remotely sensed data, and in improving the
quality and documentation of processed data such
that their utility and information content will
increase with time.
1.2 Mission Outline
EOS is an international, cooperative program in
cluding five polar platforms and their follow-
ons : two provided by NASA, two by the European
Formerly with the Earth Science and Applications Division,
Washington, DC 20546, USA. ^gg
National Aeronautics and Space Administration,