Piql Book of References

European Space Agency Case Study

Data from ESA’s past and present space science missions, covering astronomy, planetary science and heliophysics, is archived at ESA’s Science Data Centre. The data centre provides innovative services and tools for scientists to access and interact with the data, maximising the scientific exploitation of the missions and enabling efficient long-term preservation of data, software and knowledge, using modern technology. It also hosts data from scientific experiments conducted on Human and Robotic Exploration research platforms such as sounding rockets, ground-based facilities and including the International Space Station, as well as exploration missions such as ExoMars and future Moon missions. Through its Heritage Data Programme, ESA ensures digital preservation and access to archived satellite data for scientists, policy makers and value-adding companies. The ESA archive contains a remarkable amount of information, with eight petabytes of data in a variety of historical formats needing to be managed into the future. THE CHALLENGE As an organisation with decades of different technology layers and developments, ESA is constantly working to solve the challenges presented by legacy data, maintaining access to historical content that can be of value to the scientific and commercial communities for contemporary analysis. Datasets covering long periods of time are of great importance and are needed to determine changes in our planet’s climate. For this reason, it is vital that satellite data and other Earth science data are preserved for future generations and still accessible and usable after many years. The older the data, although more difficult to preserve, the more valuable it becomes, especially for long-term statistics. A significant part of the problem with content from old storage mediums and outdated archival strategies has been the lack of metadata and documentation about the content, including information types and how it can be used. Much of archived information also sits in old formats or on media that is challenging to read and access, presenting a major legacy problem for the data custodians. Due to technological obsolescence, keeping data alive and accessible beyond a few years can be challenging. Most storage mediums are designed for short term stor age, failing after just a few years or becoming unreadable. Further, the organisation has received repositories with a high volume of unidentified content, that requires digitisation to extract, understand and realise the actual value of the content.

SOLUTION ESA has chosen Piql to conduct a pilot project to digitally preserve a collection of analogue content. A combination of film, microfilm, paper and some obscure formats will be digitised, indexed and structured by Piql with relevant metadata extraction for better search and accessibility. With extensive preservation experience, Piql has tailored this developed for ESA, compliant with ISO standards for preservation as well as ensuring high quality digitisation. Piql will also conduct a feasibility study on satellite formats. This assessment will help both institutions better understand the compatibility of Piql’s storage solution, while enriching the preservation process including the collection of valuable reference information, file formats and metadata on piqlFilm. Finally, an important part of the project is to safeguard the digitised content as well as other important digital assets into the future on piqlFilm. ESA had been looking for a migration-free medium that guaranteed future access for critical historical data and the metadata to better describe the historical information stored and how to access this in the future. ESA has chosen a model where half of the content will be kept on-site at ESA, with the other half safely stored in the Arctic World Archive, contributing to the growing collection of world memory. By ensuring on hand copies, as well as having secure offline copies stored in a politically stable and neutral zone, ESA is further strengthening their long-term preservation strategy. The project will begin with 20 piqlfilm time capsules for the first phase of the project, to be completed within the first half of 2020. FUTURE This project marks the beginning of what both institutions believe to be the beginning of a long and successful partnership for the development of preservation knowledge and competence. This stands to benefit not only the research community by securing access to valuable satellite data for future generations, but also for other domains within the digital preservation community.

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