RAY ARVIDSON’S COMMENTS
Planetary Data System Management Council Meeting
29-30 November 2006 (Wednesday-Thursday)
Residence Inn, 333 E Street SW - Senate Meeting Room
Washington, DC
Notes from first day of the PDS Management Council meeting, by Dick Simpson. Action items are in uppercase red and embedded within the narrative (see also summary at end).
NASA Headquarters (left), directly across the street from the Residence Inn by Marriott Capitol, site of the 29-30 November 2006 PDS Management Council meeting. (IMG_2628.JPG)
Participants:
PDS Management Council Minutes 29-30 November 2006 2
Mike A'Hearn (SBN)
Ray Arvidson (GEO)
Reta Beebe (PS; ATM)
Denis Bogan (NASA HQ) *
Tony Carro (NASA HQ) *
Nancy Chanover (ATM)
Phil Crane (NASA HQ) *
Dan Crichton (EN)
Patty Garcia (IMG/USGS)
Mitch Gordon (RINGS)
Ed Grayzeck (PM; GSFC)
Jim Green (NASA PSD) *
Colleen Hartman (NASA HQ) *
Sue Hoban (UMd-BC)
Steve Hughes (EN)
Steve Joy (PPI)
Todd King (PPI)
Bill Knopf (NASA HQ)
Ludmilla Kolokolova (SBN)
Sue Lavoie (IMG)
Emily Law (EN)
Anne Raugh (SBN)
Mark Rose (NASA ARC)
Steve Saunders (NASA HQ) *
Al Schultz (GSFC)
Mark Showalter (RINGS)
Dick Simpson (RS)
Ray Walker (PPI)
*part of day only
PDS MC Minutes 2 August 2006 - original 2
Mike Martin connected via the conference call telephone line but said nothing.
Housekeeping (Grayzeck):
Grayzeck convened the meeting at 9 AM local time and then briefly summarized logistical arrangements.
Executive Summary (both days):
Colleen Hartman and Jim Green met with the Management Council (MC) separately for a total of more than two hours, exchanging views on issues of common concern in planetary science. The role of PDS in curating data from ESMD lunar missions was a high priority. Before adjourning, MC agreed to schedule its next meeting (in the March/April 2007 time frame) in DC specifically to improve the interface with ESMD, to make the case for a significant science role in those explorations, and to explain the value of delivering the lunar data to a public, science-based, archive.
Data Access (International, Domestic, and Technical): Tony Carro, Steve Saunders, Denis Bogan, and Phil Crane also attended from HQ and contributed to discussions on international activities, data usability, and the need to get more high-level data into the archive. Reta Beebe, Mike A'Hearn, and Dan Crichton reported briefly on the first meeting of the International Planetary Data Alliance (IPDA) in the Netherlands. PDS has the de facto lead in setting international standards both because other agencies have little funding to invent their own systems and also because PDS has solved many of the problems they face at their own stages of development. Headquarters personnel agreed that flagging proposals promising data products could be a relatively simple change and one that might yield a significant increase in the number of high-level data products delivered to the archive. On another front, Mike Martin reported on his survey of science data access architectures being used within NASA. Mark Rose continues to work on improving the user interface to PDS data through determination of true user needs, prototyping and testing new web page designs, and interviewing data producers.
Mission Archiving: MC reviewed the status of archiving for international missions (MEX, VEX, Hayabusa, and Rosetta), for MRO specifically now that it is entering its primary mission, at the Geosciences Node (GEO) more generally, and for New Horizons (NH). The Small Bodies Node (SBN) has seen a significant change in the NH attitude toward archiving since it became apparent that NASA would open a Data Analysis Program (DAP) for NH data collected during its Jupiter flyby. PDS visibility into NH remains limited; but new initiatives were started to obtain sample data, labels, and documentation on data products. Bogan assured MC that the solicitation for NH J-DAP proposals would not be released until the Jupiter data had been delivered to PDS and given at least a preliminary grade of "usable."
Data Integrity: MC adopted policies to protect the integrity of its holdings against media degradation and to establish plans for disaster recovery. In both cases, the policies will be used to develop requirements, which will then guide implementation. The Media Working Group is digesting reports from the National Institute of Standards and Technology on a set of 21 CD's and DVD's that were tested to characterize degradation.
Software and Standards: The new label validation tool is completing testing with a January target for deployment; the next level of validation tool should be ready by mid-2007. Meanwhile a new label design tool will have its requirements reviewed in February. The CATS data tracking software has been delivered to PHOENIX and is ready to go. The Engineering Node was asked to draft the definition for a MOVIE object and, separately, to make a recommendation on acceptable formats for "animated" data products.
Education/Outreach: Finally, Sue Hoban reported that the College Student Investigator program is accepting applications and expects to have its first hires on-board by January.
Planetary Science Status (Green):
Overview: Green has been Acting Director of the Planetary Science Division (PSD) for about four months. He believes that PSD is the most envied division at NASA HQ because of the work it does and the excitement of the science. In earlier times, he helped to draft the original MOU between NSSDC and PDS, which was signed on 17 December 1986. He views PDS as the backbone of NASA's planetary activity; it must have adequate funding for maintenance, evolution, expansion, data ingestion and management, and administration.
Administrative Changes: New civil service positions for a Discovery Program Executive and Program Scientist have been created, and the openings will be posted soon. Alan Harmon will be responsible for the Radioisotope Power System; he is a detailee from DoE.
New Missions: Three full missions and three missions-of-opportunity (MOO's) have been accepted by Discovery for Phase-A studies at $1.2M (9 months) and $0.25M (4 months) each, respectively. The missions were described in the minutes of the 13 November 2006 MC telecon. PDS needs to prepare for one or more final selections from each of the two categories. All selections will be cost capped at $450M for full missions and $35M for MOO's.
More than 20 full proposals plus several MOO's were received in response to the Mars Scout solicitation; these are in peer review with decisions expected by the end of the calendar year (before MEPAG). The Phase-A studies will be 9 months with $2M in funding.
Current Missions: MGS was recently lost; four others (ODY, MRO, and two MER's) continue at Mars. MSL and Phoenix are new launches. Discovery has Messenger, Deep Impact, and Stardust flying with DAWN preparing for launch in 2007. New Frontiers has New Horizons en route to Pluto and Juno preparing for launch. Flagship missions are Cassini and MSL. On the international scene are MEX, VEX, Rosetta, and Hayabusa with Chandrayaan launching in 2008. Green would like to see New Horizons Jupiter encounter data in PDS as quickly as possible for a DAP; A'Hearn has noticed a distinct change in the mission's interest in archiving in the past two months.
Arvidson asked about rumors that Exploration Systems Mission Directorate (ESMD) is developing a data system for LRO/LCROSS that would REPLICATE AND/OR COMPLEMENTreplicate PDS; Green was not aware of this and will investigate. The PDS action will be assigned to Knopf.
Grayzeck mentioned efforts to draft an MOU between JSC and PDS for analysis of STARDUST data; this began in 2005 and still has a long way to go. Green will investigate and see whether he can move it along. The PDS action will be assigned to Knopf.
Planning: The PSD Roadmap is posted on the solarsystem.nasa.gov web site; it has been mirrored elsewhere.
Findings and Recommendations: The Outer Planets Assessment Group (OPAG, chaired by Fran Bagenal) and other PAG's now send "findings" to the Planetary Science Subcommittee (PSS, chaired by Sean Solomon) which makes "recommendations" to the NASA Advisory Committee (NAC) which then makes recommendations directly to the NASA Administrator. PSS has recommended that (1) flagship missions be required to address the most fundamental objectives of solar system exploration and (2) the New Frontiers Program should not be expanded in an attempt to accomplish goals more appropriate to flagship-class missions. PSS has also recommended that in-depth studies be completed as soon as feasible to evaluate mission concepts and technologies for potential outer solar system missions.
PSD will conduct detailed studies of Europa, Titan, Enceladus, and Ganymede missions with about $1M allocated for each. There will be science community participation through Science Definition Teams and reports to OPAG. The study results will be sent for outside review. Green plans to request a new initiative (additional funding from Congress) for a flagship mission based on the results.
R&A Issues: The President's FY07 budget includes a 15 percent reduction in funding for R&A programs and a 50 percent cut in Astrobiology. PSS has recommended that a healthy and stable R&A program be maintained even if doing so requires delay in a future small, medium, or large mission.
ROSES 2007 will be issued on about 6 February. New R&A programs include Stardust Sample Analysis, New Horizons at Jupiter Analysis, Cassini Participating Scientist, and Lunar Advanced Science and Exploration Research (LASER). The four will be funded by new money, despite the fact that the existing programs will probably suffer the 15 percent cuts. LASER is the only R&A element that hasn't been announced previously; it will be jointly funded by PSD and ESMD. LASER will support a number of activities including restoration of old lunar data that might be useful for future exploration.
Green plans to evaluate the health of R&A in PSD; there will be a retreat on the subject early in 2007, and he plans to present results at the PSS meeting in February. He wants to find which R&A elements need additional funding the most. He also wants to develop strategies for improving the R&A evaluation and award process. He will use the results of the DPS Survey in 2005 and the PSI (Mark Sykes) Survey conducted in April 2006.
Program Executive Report (Knopf):
The Discovery kickoff was about a week ago; one of the tasks Bill tried to emphasize was developing an early relationship with PDS. Tentative lead node assignments of GEO for GRAIL, ATM for VESPER, and SBN for all of the others were made; these had been discussed within PDS two weeks earlier.
About 40 Discovery DAP proposals were received; about half were accepted.
Budget increments went to each of the DN's; all except IMG/USGS seem to have received the funds. Attempting to get money out through the new RAPTOR system is more difficult; Bill is working on the problems.
Knopf is continuing to work on the archiving issue for the ESMD lunar missions. One proposal is to establish a GEO subnode at Goddard. Another proposal is to establish an "international" lunar node at Marshall; this may be the "parallel" data system that Arvidson mentioned earlier. The idea appears to have originated on the engineering side and may have received early funding internally at Goddard.
Project Scientist Report (Beebe):
About two dozen people attended the first IPDA meeting on 8-10 November at ESTEC; included were Beebe and A'Hearn from PDS. The goal of the meeting was to determine current status, identify missing players (e.g., India), and develop a plan for the future.
Reta came out of the meeting with two conclusions: (1) none of the other groups has any money, and (2) PDS has spread like a virus that is now the de facto standard since no one wants to invent anything different. For China, international archiving is not on the domestic agenda; but the scientists are willing to work on it. Most of the others are already doing it since PDS has provided a ready-made solution to a problem that must be solved.
ESA, NASA, RAS, JAXA, CNSA, and ISRO have already agreed to be members of IPDA; DLR, CNES, and ASI have been invited. For now, other agencies will not be included since they are not actively producing data. The Steering Committee will have a maximum membership of 18; currently these are Beebe and Crichton from PDS, Heather and another TBD from ESA, Alexander Sakharov and Viktor Savorsky from RSA, Kasaba San and Shinohara San from JAXA, and Huang and Liu from CNSA. Joe Zender will chair.
The next face-to-face meeting is scheduled for 17-21 July 2007 at Caltech. More frequent meetings on specific topics will be via e-mail; Zender suggested that these working groups or "projects" have limited lifetimes. "Projects" will work toward recommendations; when adopted, the recommendations will become "standards." The first project (assigned to Beebe and Hughes) is to define a project management template that will allow the Steering Committee to work effectively across time zones (due January 2007).
Project Manager Report (Grayzeck):
Green had suggested that PDS look at the lunar data currently available through PDS, NSSDC and other sources. Grayzeck distributed a one-page summary table.
Grayzeck presented a chart showing missions and their status as a function of time; he requested reports of errors and updates.
Mars Express Archives (Arvidson):
The MEX archiving effort follows from an international MOU between ESA and NASA. David Heather is now the MEX lead on the ESA side, replacing Joe Zender. GEO hosts copies of the MEX data that have been placed on line by the PSA; but not all products which have been delivered to the PSA have completed PSA review and been placed on line. The system seems to be working, but is running about a year behind.
Jean-Pierre Bibring (MEX OMEGA PI) and others have argued for an extended archiving timeline because of low funding levels provided by national governments; the delivery requirement has been lengthened from 6 to 12 months. The only instrument which has 2005 data on line is HRSC; PFS has archived nothing, and the others have data only from 2004 in the public domain.
Deliveries to PDS have been problematic. Data "bricks" have been held by customs; one was apparently stolen. The current plan is to improve the ftp process even though the typical transfer rate is slow.