Evolution of the Earth Observing System (EOS) Data and Information System (EOSDIS)

One of the strategic goals of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is to “Develop a balanced overall program of science, exploration, and aeronautics consistent with the redirection of the human spaceflight program to focus on exploration” (NASA 2006). An important sub-goal of this goal is to “Study Earth from space to advance scientific understanding and meet societal needs.” NASA meets this sub-goal in partnership with other US agencies and international organizations through its Earth science program. A major component of NASA’s Earth science program is the Earth Observing System (EOS). The EOS program was started in 1990 with the primary purpose of modeling global climate change. This program consists of a set of space-borne instruments, science teams, and a data system. The instruments are designed to obtain highly accurate, frequent, and global measurements of geophysical properties of land, oceans, and atmosphere. The science teams are responsible for designing the instruments as well as scientific algorithms to derive information from the instrument measurements.