A roadmap for planetary spatial data infrastructure

Kurzfassung

A major component of many planetary missions is to return planetary spatial data, which are any data with a spatial component. Such data include orbital, remotely sensed data; rover-collected, navigation imagery; and collected samples with a spatial component. These data are used to make higher-order products used by planetary scientists and engineers for analysis and exploration, including image mosaics, basemaps, Digital Elevation Models (DEMs), thermal maps, and other products. Often these spatial data are not processed in ways that are standard or interpretable to users outside the mission science teams, nor are the higher-order products available to the general scientific user, especially over the long term. Earth science data users have addressed this issue and made easily accessible clearinghouses of ready-to-use spatial data, for example for Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper images. NASA and the planetary community have recognized the need for a strategy for making planetary spatial data accessible and useable to the planetary community and have assembled the Mapping and Planetary Spatial Infrastructure Team (MAPSIT), similar to other Assessment Groups (AGs). This community group (with the author list as the steering committee) is tasked with preparing a Roadmap for Planetary Spatial Data Infrastructure (PSDI). Here we detail the rationale, outline, and plans for this roadmap.