The IMAGE Archive and the Science and Mission Operations Center

R. J. Burley and J. L. Green (NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771)

The Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration (IMAGE) is quantifying the 
response of the magnetosphere to the time variable solar wind with a series of 
state-of-art remote sensing instruments.  IMAGE is acquiring a variety of 
three-dimensional images of magnetospheric boundaries and plasma distributions 
extending from the magnetopause to the inner plasmasphere. The images are produced on 
time scales needed to answer important questions about the interactions of the solar 
wind and the magnetosphere. The IMAGE team is providing open access to all IMAGE data. 
There will be no proprietary rights or periods. All IMAGE science data products are 
being archived and available to the scientific research community through the National 
Space Science Data Center (NSSDC).

The IMAGE mission is operating with a near 100 percent duty cycle with all instruments 
in their baseline operational modes. The Science and Mission Operations Control Center 
or SMOC at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) is the main data and command 
processing system for IMAGE. The IMAGE Level-0 data is being processed daily into Level 
0.5 and Level-1 data and browse products within less than 48 hours after their receipt 
of raw data in the SMOC. These data products are then transferred to the NSSDC, for 
long-term archiving, and posted immediately on the world-wide-web for use by the 
international scientist community and the public.  This paper will discuss how to obtain 
access to the wealth of IMAGE data now being produced.

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Presented at the Fall American Geophysical Union Meeting, 
San Francisco, CA., December 15-19, 2000