For the seventh time, NASA has selected the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder) for the management and operations of the Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) Snow and Ice Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC). Under the contract, valued at $68 million, the NSIDC DAAC will continue to provide data management services focused on preserving, documenting, and providing access to cryospheric data and related geophysical data. The initial contract period is April 1, 2023 through March 31, 2024, with four one-year extension options. The contract’s priority areas include providing expert stewardship of NASA data, enabling a diverse science community, advancing open science and leveraging cloud technology. 

“For the past 30 years, the NSIDC DAAC has provided scalable support and stewardship of a dynamic, diverse collection of over 1,000 cryospheric and related Earth Science data products,” said Amanda Leon, NSIDC DAAC Manager. “We look forward to adding support for data in the cloud and open science that will broaden the discovery and use of free, open data for the science community that we serve.” 

The NSIDC DAAC, operated at CU Boulder since 1993, serves NASA's mission to understand the Earth and its response to natural and human-induced change as part of the NASA Earth Observing System Data and Information System. It distributes cryosphere and related geophysical data from NASA Earth-observing satellite missions, airborne campaigns, and field observations, and these data can be used to study topics relating to snow cover, sea ice, ice sheets, ice shelves, glaciers, frozen ground, soil moisture, and climate interactions. The NSIDC DAAC is one of twelve DAACs in the NASA Earth Science Data and Information System Project (ESDIS) and provides hundreds of free and open NASA Earth science data sets, detailed data documentation, data tools, resources, tutorials, robust data user support services, and more.  

“CU Boulder is honored that NSIDC will continue its longstanding collaboration with NASA through this contract,” said Massimo Ruzzene, vice chancellor for Research and Innovation and dean of the institutes at CU Boulder. “The DAAC exemplifies our university’s excellence in earth and environmental sciences while also demonstrating the value our researchers provide to scientific and public communities around the world.” 

NSIDC conducts innovative research and provides open data to enable scientists, educators, students, and journalists to better understand how the frozen parts of the planet are changing because of climate change. NSIDC is part of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado Boulder.  

Learn more about the new NSIDC DAAC contract via the NASA press release.