Space Operations

Archiving Space Science Data Needs Further Management Improvements Gao ID: NSIAD-94-25 December 9, 1993

In two 1990 reports (GAO/IMTEC-90-1 and GAO/IMTEC-91-3), GAO criticized the conditions of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) data archives, pointing out that the archives were incomplete for many important missions and held no data for others. GAO recommended that NASA improve the physical condition of its archives, obtain and restore all appropriate data from past missions, and revise its data management policies to ensure that all valuable data are adequately achieved in the future. Since then, NASA has improved its data-archiving policies and practices, but further improvements are needed to correct some significant long-standing problems, such as continuing storage of data at "temporary locations" that do not meet archive standards and the lack of periodic inspections of data archives to ensure that data quality is protected.

GAO found that NASA: (1) has responded to its recommendations by improving its data storage conditions, creating subject area archives, locating, restoring, and archiving data from past missions, and revising its data management policies and procedures; (2) has not completed its efforts to locate archival data from past missions because it has not assessed data held in temporary storage locations; (3) cannot estimate the funds needed for archival data restoration because it lacks information on the availability of past mission data; (4) needs to develop data management plans so it can adequately budget for future archiving needs; (5) has not reached agreement with other agencies on the storage of Earth Observing System data; (6) does not ensure that original data are preserved until permanent archives are created and does not periodically inspect data archive facilities or sample data to ensure that physical conditions protect data quality; and (7) needs to update its data management policies to reflect changes in its responsibilities due to its reorganization.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

Director: Team: Phone:


The Justia Government Accountability Office site republishes public reports retrieved from the U.S. GAO These reports should not be considered official, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Justia.