Europe’s Herschel Space Observatory to deliver data after launch in mid-2007 / Versant’s Object Database will power Storage and Retrieval of Data in Part of the Science Ground Segment

Versant Corporation (NASDAQ: VSNT), an industry leader in specialized data management and data persistence software, today announced that Versant’s Object Database technology will be used to store critical data within the Science Ground Segment of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Herschel Observatory.

ESA’s Herschel Space Observatory consists of the largest telescope ever put in orbit (3.5 m diameter) with a complement of 3 instruments capable of recording radiation in the far infrared and sub-millimeter regime of the electromagnetic spectrum. With launch currently planned for mid-2007, this satellite will, after a coasting phase of several months, be stationed approximately 1 million miles from the Earth at a location called the second Lagrange point in the Earth/Sun system and transmit data to Earth for a period of up to 4 years. The radiation emitted by astronomical objects in the wavelength regime in which the instruments are sensitive ranges from Solar System Objects nearby (planets, their moons, asteroids) to the most distant objects known in space (galaxies that formed more than 10 billion years ago). Some of this data, which provides valuable clues about stellar formation and the molecular composition of the universe, will be stored in a number of synchronized object databases.

Since 2001, ESA—and the nationally funded instrument teams across Europe that provide the Herschel instruments—have used Versant’s product to test and characterize the instruments in the laboratories of the Principal Investigators and their associated institutes. Over the years, these teams have come to appreciate the underlying object-oriented database technology, which allows complex, networked data to be accessed in a manner that promises to be superior to the way in which we access data in more conventional, relational database systems today: Instead of fixed keywords—metadata describing a few dozen previously agreed aspects to characterize each set of stored data—associations between data objects can now be used to navigate the database and the data can be accessed directly from within the database.

“On previous ESA missions, the teams in charge of in-flight instrument health assessment, calibration, and performance had to use a multitude of tools to search for and extract critical data from files,” says Dr. Johannes Riedinger, Development Manager of the Herschel Science Centre at ESA’s Technology and Research Centre (ESTEC) in Noordwijk, NL. “Compared to these previous projects we now have at our fingertips a tool which could significantly reduce the time we need to retrieve and put into context essential data. To confirm that the spacecraft and instruments are operated near their optimum settings we need feedback from the Instrument Control Centers. We believe that this technology will reduce the time it takes us to feed back these improved parameter settings to the on-board instruments for upcoming observations. We have been told by the national instrument teams that this technology will help them to lower the threshold in correlating data to environmental influences. In this way we hope to optimize the quality of the data and the efficiency with which the data is taken to increase the scientific return from the mission.”

“The Versant database will be home to observations astronomers throughout the world will propose to carry out with the Herschel observatory,” continues Dr. Riedinger. “It will host the observation schedules generated from these proposals, it will contain the instrument commands uplinked to the spacecraft, and it will permanently store the telemetry received when these observation requests are executed. This telemetry constitutes the data the scientists need to derive and correct for trends in instrument behavior within a few days of an observation being made.”

On average, 6-7 GB of raw data have to be stored per day in the Versant database. A compressed version of this data is downlinked every 24 hours from a mass memory unit aboard the satellite to a ground station near Perth/ Australia. It is then forwarded to the Herschel Mission Control Centre at the European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt (DE), transmitted to the Herschel Science Centre near Madrid (SP), and propagated from there to the national Instrument Control Centers at Garching (Max-Planck-Institut für Extraterrestrische Physik, DE), Groningen (Space Research Organisation of the Netherlands, NL), and Didcot (Rutherford Appleton Laboratories, GB).

To scientific end users, and to people from the interested public, appropriate servers will provide raw and processed Herschel data—images of objects in different infrared/ far-infrared “colors” and spectra at different wavelengths and resolution from objects that were observed. Similar to the results from previous and current ESA missions, this “product archive” will be based on the more conventional technology of a relational database system with keywords as metadata and files containing the actual products.
During its 3-4 year lifetime, Herschel will collect unique data for use by the astronomical community. Because the Herschel instruments record radiation mostly at far-infrared and sub-millimeter wavelengths at an unprecedented scale and sensitivity, it will be possible to detect and characterize many previously invisible objects that are obscured by clouds of gas and dust or that are so cold that they do not emit any visible radiation at all. The mission is expected to deliver an estimated data volume of up to 50 TB of data, which will remain available to the astronomical community for another 20 years to exploit scientifically.

“We are proud to count ESA among our customers,” said Robert Greene, vice president, product strategy of Versant. “We're pleased to be able to contribute to this challenging scientific project with the most demanding database requirements. The Versant Object Database was chosen after a thorough comparative evaluation against another leading database.”

About ESA

ESA, the European Space Agency, is an international organization aimed at exclusively peaceful exploitation and research in space. This includes missions dedicated to space science, research, industrial policy and practical applications. Interested readers are referred to: www.esa.int.

About ESA’s Herschel Mission

More detail specifically concerning the Herschel mission can be found at: http://www.rssd.esa.int/SA-general/Projects/Herschel/. Links to other activities within ESA’s Research and Scientific Support Department can be found at http://www.rssd.esa.int/index.php?project=SA.

About Versant Corporation

Versant Corporation (NASDAQ: VSNT) is an industry leader in specialized data management software. Using Versant's solutions, customers cut hardware costs, speed and simplify development, significantly reduce administration costs, and deliver products with a strong competitive edge. Versant’s solutions are deployed in a wide array of industries including telecommunications, financial services, transportation, manufacturing, and defense. With over 50,000 installations, Versant has been a highly reliable partner for over 15 years for Global 2000 companies such as British Airways, US Government, Financial Times, IBM, and MCI. For more information, call 510-789-1500 or visit www.versant.com.

Versant is a registered trademark or trademark of Versant Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other products are a registered trademark or trademark of their respective company in the United States and/or other countries.