New dawn for space research
Representing the largest space programme in operation, the International Space Station (ISS) has helped produce large amounts of important research and data about our world. This achievement has been supported by the European User Support & Operation Centres (USOCs) for the ISS, thanks to their strong links among all stakeholders in space research. Against this backdrop, the EU-funded project 'The USOCs knowledge integration and dissemination for space science experimentation' (ULISSE) improved how research results from the ISS and other space platforms are exploited. The project team surveyed users and analysed their needs to understand how to improve the use of emerging data. It aimed at documenting and harmonising legal constraints for disseminating ISS data, identifying high-tech tools to manage knowledge efficiently and exploit data effectively. The endeavour involved creation of a research project catalogue. Defining a metadata standard helped describe experiments in the catalogue. ULISSE also established a portal to promote the project and involve the user community. It developed a set of online services through this portal that supports searching, browsing and managing knowledge bases. Specifically, the portal has been established to provide scientific and technical data concerning most scientific disciplines, from space medicine and exobiology to biotechnology and materials sciences. Overall, the project team proved that building an e-infrastructure for scientific data preservation and exploitation is feasible, and can become a valuable tool for research. This will pave the way for a more sophisticated research mechanism that will support space research and strengthen the European knowledge economy, with direct benefits for scientific productivity and education. The project's website has a private area for users.
