An ASM is a forum where senior Agency management reviews major acquisitions in programs and projects before authorizing significant budget expenditures. The ASM is held at the Mission Directorate/Mission Support Office level, implementing the decisions that flow out of the earlier Agency acquisition strategy planning. The ASM is typically held early in Formulation, but the timing is determined by the Mission Directorate. The ASM focuses on considerations such as impacting the Agency workforce, maintaining core capabilities and make-or-buy planning, and supporting Center assignments and potential partners.

A formula or set of steps used, sometimes repetitively, to solve a problem. Algorithms implemented as software are delivered to NASA's Science Investigator-led Processing System (SIPS) or to NASA's Science Data Processing Segment (SDPS) by a science investigator (principal investigator, team leader, or Interdisciplinary Investigator) to use as primary tools in the generation of science products. The term includes executable code, source code, job control scripts, and documentation.

An ATBD describes the physical and mathematical description of the algorithms to be used in the generation of data products. It includes a description of variance and uncertainty estimates and considerations of calibration and validation, exception control, and diagnostics. In some cases, internal and external data product flows are required.

Data which are not obtained from the sensor itself (usually provided in the science telemetry) and have the primary purpose to serve the processing of instrument data. This can be divided into data referred to as spacecraft ‘engineering’, ‘core housekeeping’ or ‘subsystem’ data obtained from other parts of the platform and includes parameters such as orbit position and velocity, attitude and its range of change, time, temperatures, pressures, jet firings, water dumps, internally produced magnet fields, and other environmental measurements. Ancillary refers to data that exist purely to serve the data processing; auxiliary data, while helping the process, are also data sets in their own right.

A system access point or library function that has a well-defined syntax and is accessible from application programs or user code to provide well-defined functionality. Check out the Earthdata Developer Portal for a list of APIs managed by the ESDS Program.

The archive stores data products, guaranteeing their preservation for future use. This function includes all operations to identify, store and retrieve the data and ensure their integrity.

(ADURD) A document which provides generic requirements for data archiving, data distribution and user services for EOSDIS-supported data.

Data that represent spacecraft orientation and onboard pointing information. Attitude data includes: attitude sensor data used to determine the pointing of the spacecraft axes, calibration and alignment data, Euler angles or quaternions, rates and biases, and associated parameters. Attitude generated onboard in quaternion or Euler angle form. Refined and routine production data related to the accuracy or knowledge of the attitude.

An element of metadata, e.g., title, summary, format, dataset language.