SAIC to help operate world-renowned EROS Data Center

But this was much more than a business victory for SAIC. The people working on the contract see it as an opportunity to make an important contribution to the world. They believe the work at the EROS Data Center is vital to our understanding of future land use and environmental change, which is at the center of national and international debate today. They also believe SAIC's work at the center will potentially affect millions of lives. The center plays a key role in research on natural and man-made disasters. In the past, these have included volcanic eruptions, oil spills, floods, hurricanes, droughts, as well as the Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident and the environmental damage caused during the Gulf War.

Researchers worldwide rely on the center for maps, images, and data products. In fact, the center holds the world's largest collection of non-military remotely sensed data — more than 15 million images captured by NASA's Space Shuttle, by NASA and commercial aircraft, and by USGS, NASA, and NOAA satellites.

All of this makes the center the premier facility of its kind in the world. The SAIC Space, Earth & Atmospheric Sciences Group working at the center performs similar work for the Atmospheric Sciences Data Center at NASA's Langley Research Center, as well as key technical support for several spaceborne remote sensing instruments at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. In addition, they provide significant engineering support to the Space Shuttle and International Space Station.

SAIC has a clear vision of the challenges at EROS. "We begin work on the contract against the backdrop of EDC internal reorganization, shifting priorities, budget limitations within the USGS, an aggressive move toward performance-based contracting at the center, potential privatization of the Landsat satellites, and the increasingly multidisciplinary nature of land science," says Ed Gibson, SAIC program manager and former NASA Skylab astronaut.

Another important initiative will be to keep the data center and USGS on the forefront of information technology. "We look forward to helping USGS develop new technologies and applications to handle the explosive growth of data being archived at the center and to appropriately process these data," says Gibson.

Thanks to the collection capabilities of today's remote sensing instruments, these data are increasing toward multiple terabytes a day. Finding information in this growing mountain of data will require some of the most advanced software and algorithms used in high-performance computing. Having better data mining tools is essential because these enormous, unique data sets will help determine land use and vegetation cover, manage national resources, and advance the understanding of the effects human have on the Earth.

Approximately 475 SAIC and subcontractor employees will be operating the world's leading data center for land use and land processes research from its location in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.