Abstract
The National Space Science Data Center (NSSDC) has accumulated, over the last 20 years, several 100 Gigabytes of astrophysics and astronomy data sets and catalogs in digital form and thousands of feet of film. The astrophysics data in the NSSDC archive comes from such international spacecraft missions as the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) and the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS). In addition to the large astrophysics data holdings, there are over 580 astronomy catalogs of stars and galaxies in the NSSDC archive. The NSSDC is a long term archive which has the responsibility of being a permanent NASA facility. The NSSDC data holdings are undergoing periodic media replacement. For instance, the IUE and IRAS data holding, currently stored on magnetic helical scan tape and 9 track magnetic tape respectively, are being rewritten to random access optical disk. In addition, the NSSDC is in the process of ensuring that all data in its archive has a backup which is stored at a separate location.
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© 1991 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Van Steenberg, M.E., Green, J.L. (1991). The NSSDC Services. In: Albrecht, M.A., Egret, D. (eds) Databases & On-line Data in Astronomy. Astrophysics and Space Science Library, vol 171. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3250-3_16
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3250-3_16
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
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