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NASA’s Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS) Project is responsible for the storage and public distribution of NASA Earth science data. ESDIS partners with NASA-funded data creators and providers to archive and serve their data to a global community of millions of users. ESDIS offers this service through discipline-specific and common tools, at no cost to the data provider, with the added benefit of protecting data from disaster and technology obsolescence.

Submitting Data for ESDIS Archival

The ESDIS data archival process is a collaboration between you — the data producer — and an ESDIS Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC). Because each mission is unique, ESDIS will assign a specialized DAAC to work with you to ensure that your data products are FAIR: Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and (Re)usable. The process starts with the submission of a Data Accession Request via Earthdata Pub, the ESDIS data publication resource center. Earthdata Pub provides all the information and online tools you need to initiate the process.

To learn more about the processes and requirements, please select one of the following links based on the source of your data:

  • NASA's Orbital and Airborne Missions and Investigations
    • New data products from satellite, Earth Venture, and airborne investigations.
  • NASA's Competitive Programs
    • New data products from NASA-funded research activities, including Making Earth Science Data Records for Use in Research Environments (MEaSUREs) and Earth science research funded by Research and Analysis (R&A) and Earth Action.
  • Other Data Products
    • Miscellaneous ad hoc requests for new data products (not produced by NASA-funded projects) are considered on a case-by-case basis. These requests must support NASA-funded research and data products.

NASA has developed an official declaration of “Data Rights” for those who submit their data to ESDIS.

For data hosting questions please read Frequently Asked Questions About Adding New Data to ESDIS or visit the Earthdata Forum, where you can interact with other users and NASA subject matter experts on a variety of Earth science research and applications topics.