NASA's Long-Term Astrophysics Data Archives

TL;DR

NASA's astrophysics data archives are crucial for maximizing scientific return, enabling access, interpretation, and long-term preservation of space mission data, which significantly boosts research productivity.

Contribution

The paper provides an overview of NASA's major astrophysics archives and discusses strategies for data accessibility, usability, and long-term sustainability.

Findings

Archives more than double the number of resulting papers.

Funding and technical innovation are key for long-term data preservation.

Robust systems enable sustained scientific research.

Abstract

NASA regards data handling and archiving as an integral part of space missions, and has a strong track record of serving astrophysics data to the public, beginning with the the IRAS satellite in 1983. Archives enable a major science return on the significant investment required to develop a space mission. In fact, the presence and accessibility of an archive can more than double the number of papers resulting from the data. In order for the community to be able to use the data, they have to be able to find the data (ease of access) and interpret the data (ease of use). Funding of archival research (e.g., the ADAP program) is also important not only for making scientific progress, but also for encouraging authors to deliver data products back to the archives to be used in future studies. NASA has also enabled a robust system that can be maintained over the long term, through technical innovation and careful attention to resource allocation. This article provides a brief overview of some of NASA's major astrophysics archive systems, including IRSA, MAST, HEASARC, KOA, NED, the Exoplanet Archive, and ADS.