Microsoft, NASA Reach For The Moon

Space is no longer Google's exclusive territory. Microsoft and the NASA Ames Research Center have struck a deal to make planetary images and other data from NASA's orbiting observatories available through Microsoft's Worldwide Telescope Web site.

The first images, including high-resolution pictures of Mars and the moon, are expected to be available starting later this year and could eventually exceed 100 TB of information, Microsoft said.

Microsoft is playing catch-up to Google in establishing a relationship with NASA and providing pictures and information from the space agency through the Internet. Google, a next-door neighbor to the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., and NASA struck a broad collaboration relationship in 2005 that included large-scale data management and development of massively distributed computing technology.

Last month Google and NASA collaborated on developing Google Mars 3D, a new Mars mode in Google Earth that offers a 3-D view of the Red Planet.

Microsoft and NASA have worked together before. The two collaborated last year to develop the 3-D interactive Microsoft Photosynth collections of images of the space shuttle launch pad and other facilities at the Kennedy Space Center.

Under the Microsoft-NASA deal, the two are developing the technology and infrastructure needed to make NASA content available through Microsoft's Worldwide Telescope site. NASA Ames is also developing a suite of planetary data processing tools to convert historic and current space imagery data into a variety of formats to make them easily accessible by the public.

NASA Ames Research Center will process and host more than 100 TB or 20,000 DVDs of data, including the high-resolution photos of Mars and the moon, which Worldwide Telescope will incorporate later this year. The data is being made available under a Space Act Agreement.

The images, for example, will include pictures from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter that was launched in August 2005 and has been examining Mars with a high-resolution camera and other instruments since 2006.

Microsoft will also offer images from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which is scheduled to launch in May and will spend a year or more orbiting the moon about 30 miles above the surface collecting data.

Microsoft said the images offered on Worldwide Telescope, which went live last spring, will supplement pictures and data available on NASA's own Planetary Data System Web site.