Implementing SPASE Metadata into the Virtual ITM Observatory

SPASE (Space Physics Archive Search and Extract) is a consortium of space physics users from a wide variety of institutions. This consortium is in the process of developing and updating a metadata specification for space physics products. Most Virtual Observatories are using SPASE as their source of information. Since SPASE uses XML, which is hierarchical, systems based upon SPASE tend to express themselves in a similar hierarchical manner. Often, knowledge of the data and its structure is needed in order to answer many questions. VITMO (Virtual Ionosphere Thermosphere Mesosphere Observatory) does not use SPASE internally, instead VITMO uses a relational database which allows the user to search based on scientific concepts, without apriori knowledge of the structure of the data. VITMO also has an architecture and metadata structure that predates the SPASE specification. SPASE, however, is the interlingua of the VO community. We will show how we have translated between the VITMO internal metadata structure and the SPASE metadata specification. This presentation will focus on the value in adopting SPASE and lessons learned in implementing it.

group.org; http://vitmo.jhuapl.edu