Community Announcements

PDS completes second Customer Satisfaction Survey

NASA recently completed the second annual Customer Satisfaction Survey of the PDS. Refer to this page for a report on the findings from the survey.

Posted: December 06, 2022

Second Annual NASA Planetary Data System Customer Satisfaction Survey – 2022

NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) is conducting its annual customer satisfaction survey of the Planetary Data System (PDS) during March-April 2022. Survey results will be used to ensure that the needs of the planetary science community are being met by identifying areas for improvement and helping the PDS set its future service priorities.

How the PDS is addressing the findings from the 2020 Customer Satisfaction Survey:

Since the conclusion of the last PDS baseline survey in 2020, the PDS has continued to develop new forward-looking strategies and working groups to address the identified needs of its users and data providers (e.g., Data Services Strategy, Cloud Computing Strategy, Web Modernization Working Group). The survey results and PDS future strategy documents were recently reviewed in context of the larger Planetary Data Ecosystem (PDE) in 2021 and findings and recommendations were reported on in the PDE Independent Review Board (IRB) final report. NASA and the PDS continue to evaluate and respond to the recommendations of the PDE IRB report. In context of the PDE, the results of our annual PDS survey will be used to measure the pulse of the PDS data user and provider community and to evaluate how well evolving PDS strategies are addressing community needs.

Updated: March 09, 2022
Posted: February 24, 2022

NASA’s Planetary Data Ecosystem Chief Scientist

NASA’s Planetary Science Division has selected Moses Milazzo to be the first chief scientist for the Planetary Data Ecosystem (PDE). Dr. Milazzo has been tasked to provide an independent link between the PDS, NASA Headquarters and the larger PDE community.

The Planetary Data Ecosystem (PDE) is a recently established concept describing the broad landscape, user community, and myriad of organizations and facilities that are involved in planning, obtaining, analyzing, preserving, and sharing data from planetary space missions. The PDE Independent Review Board (PDE IRB) recently delivered a report providing prioritized actionable recommendations to NASA’s Planetary Science Division (PSD) for its long-term planning and support of the PDE; the PDE IRB report, delivered in April 2021, can be found here.

The NASA Planetary Data System (PDS; https://pds.nasa.gov/) is the long-term archive for the data products returned from NASA's planetary missions as well as other supporting flight and ground-based facilities and programs. As noted in the PDE IRB report, while the PDS is a cornerstone of the PDE, it is only one component (see Appendix I of the PDE IRB report for a list of proposed PDE elements, which should not be considered exhaustive). Developing a common definition of the PDE and how the different elements, in particular the PDS, are differentiated but also work together, will be an important task for the planetary science community in the coming years.

Dr. Milazzo is a planetary scientist and educator specializing in visible and near-infrared remote sensing, as well as planetary data processing. He has been an active participant on eight NASA spacecraft missions and has contributed significantly to the development of planetary remote sensing, image processing, cartographic mapping and calibration techniques for a variety of missions and data types, including: MRO, MGS, and Odyssey (Mars); Cassini, Galileo and Voyager (Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto). He also managed the USGS portion of the NASA-funded PLANETS project to develop out-of-school-time planetary science and engineering curricular materials for middle school-aged youth. Milazzo received his Ph.D. in Planetary Sciences at the University of Arizona.

Updated: February 24, 2022
Posted: September 24, 2021

PDS completes first Customer Satisfaction Survey

NASA recently completed an inaugural annual Customer Satisfaction Survey of the PDS. This Report documents the findings from the Survey.

The Customer Satisfaction Survey, which was developed jointly by NASA and the Claes Fornell International Group, an independent organization under contract to the Federal Government. CFI uses a standard methodology, the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). The ACSI is a national indicator of customer evaluations of the quality of goods and services available in the U.S. It is a widely recognized industry/government measure of customer satisfaction. Accordingly, the ACSI is widely used to measure customer satisfaction among government programs. This methodology has measured hundreds of programs of federal government agencies since 1999.

The overall Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) of the PDS, based on the inaugural survey completed in June of this year, was 66. This compares to a Government wide average CSI of 68. In addition, the survey provides insight into the tools our customers use, to their search needs, and to their experience with PDS data sets.

NASA expects to use the annual ACSI survey results to continually improve PDS customer service. The next survey is planned for the Spring of 2021.

Posted: September 10, 2020

PDS Booth at LPSC 2020 (March 16-19, 2020)

We invite attendees of this year's LPSC to stop by the PDS booth. In addition to answering questions about archiving in the PDS and locating data products of interest, we will be offering several training sessions.

Full booth schedule: https://pds-geosciences.wustl.edu/lpsc2020.html

Booth Presentations and Training:


Contact: Dan Scholes, scholes@wunder.wustl.edu

Posted: February 28, 2020

PDS Data Release Calendar 2020

The Planetary Data System (PDS) has posted its Data Release Calendar for 2020.

The PDS Data Release Calendar is a searchable and sortable table of important dates associated with all PDS data releases in the current calendar year. The calendar includes anticipated release dates for mission data, actual release dates updated as they occur, and links to pages for more information and to download the data. Users can use the calendar to determine which data are acceptable for use in NASA ROSES proposals. However, the final authority on data acceptability for any ROSES opportunity rests with the designated Program Officer for that opportunity as identified in the ROSES call.

Posted: February 6, 2020

PDS Booth at EPSC-DPS 2019 (September 16-20, 2019)

Make plans to join us at the PDS booth at EPSC-DPS 2019! Learn how PDS supports the scientific community. We will offer free individual tutorials and group classes throughout the week.

Topics for group and individual sessions include:


Keep an eye out for future PEN announcements regarding the training schedule and advance registration, or drop by the booth during the week. Suggestions for additional topics are welcome.

Contact: Mitch Gordon mgordon@seti.org
Eric Palmer palmer@psi.edu

Posted: July 29, 2019

PDS Booth at Fall AGU 2018 (December 10-14, 2018)

Individual tutorials and group classes available Tuesday through Friday (December 11-14)

The PDS will have a booth at the Fall AGU 2018 meeting to provide PDS support to the scientific community. There will be both scheduled classes in selected topics as well as signup for individual support sessions. Topics will cover all stages of the archive process, from developing and costing a Data Management Plan through getting data through PDS peer review. Finding and using PDS data will also be covered.

Sign up for an individual session to get your specific questions answered, or come to one of the scheduled group sessions: http://pds-training.psi.edu

Available topics:


Contact: Joe Mafi, jmafi@igpp.ucla.edu

Posted: November 13, 2018

Revised PDS Website

PDS website has been simplified with the intent to improve its usability and navigation. We welcome and value your feedback. Please contact the PDS Operator at pds_operator@jpl.nasa.gov.

For a quick look at our new content structure, refer to our Site Map.

Posted: May 7, 2018