Thank You Scott for Your comment, I happen to be one of these guys being responsible for the web-server, offering images from the recent shuttle mission. In fact we did not expect that amount of public interest, so we had to face some kind of attack, a constant load of 600.000 to 800.000 accessses/day. Most of them came from the U.S becauese NASA-JPL had a constant link to our web site. see our statistics at www.dfd.dlr.de/stats/srtm/ On Thursday we set up some mirror sites at JPL as well as in Germany, and we also moved our local server to a more powerful workstation, now things work definitely better. It is interesting to see that many of the comments posted by slashdot users reveal that they do not understand that this mission is a joint American-German cooperation, that the imagery on our server comes from the german-italian X-SAR instrument and that all data have been processed at the German Remote Sensing Data Center. As far as I know the JPL colleagus had some problem with the DOD with respect to posting their imagery to th web. But anyhow, our cooperation has been excellent thoughout the mission, and as everything worked so well, a follow-on mission will be most probable. Then also the remaining white spots in betwen +/- 60 degrees latitude can be filled. All data will be made available through our user interface http://eoweb.dlr.de/ as soon as they have been processed. Best wishes Hans-Joachim Lotz-Iwen
The Shuttle Radar Topography Mapping Mission is a joint U.S.-German project. On board are two radar systems SIR-C (american) and X-SAR (german)that have been flown in earlier missions in 1994. Primary goal of the recent mission is the generation of a digital elevation model of the earths surface in between +/- 60 degrees latitude. Data will be processed both at the German Aerospace Center DLR and at NASA JPL, and first results are being displayed at their Web-sites www.nasa-jpl.gov/srtm and www.dfd.dlr.de/srtm As for the German site we have roughly 1 million accesses per day, mainly from U.S. users. This has put an unexspeced load to our configuration. So we recently agreed upon with JPL, that they will mirror our entire site on their server. This will hopefully improve download times. The entire data amount of the mission will be roughly 3 Terabyte for the X-SAR and more than 6 TByte for the SIR-C. There will be full exchange of data between both partners. The data catalog will be accessible through eoweb.dlr.de once the data have been processed. The pixel size is exspected to be 30m and the relative height resolution to be 6m (X-SAR) and 10m (SIR-C)
The SRTM mission is a joint american/german mission, and the evaluation of the data is being performed in close co-operation of teams from both space agencies NASA and DLR. As a result, the presentation of results within the internet servers at JPL and DLR does not have the character of a competition. The acquisition plan of both instruments X-SAR and SIR-C on board is more or less fixed, and each agency has been prepared for processing pre-defined data takes. So, what is the sense of your message??
Some infos from the german web site operators: - we had to suffer an unexpected interest of more than 3 million accesses to our SRTM webpages since friday - we have agreed upon with NASA-JPL, that they will mirror our pages, so U.S. users will not have to use the transatlantic bottleneck - indeed the data files are big, and so will be the video animations that follow now, but if You want quality you must accept that - all imagery will be kept on the server, so you can download it later (the mission ends next tuesday/wednesday) if you are upset with the recent status
Some technical infos from the operators of the German web-site: - since the launch of the shuttle mission on friday we had to manage more than 3 million user accesses, - as NASA-JPL links directly to our site, the load is distributed such, that the maximum access being recorded at local midnight MET, the best time for downloading i still between 7 and 8 a.m. MET. see: www.dfd.dlr.de/stats/srtm/ - we have agreed upon with NASA-JPL that they will mirror our complete SRTM-site next time, so that U.S. users do not have to use the transatlantic bottleneck (we know that our data traffic has significantly enhanced the data load by 30 Mb/s H.J. Lotz-Iwen DLR-DFD - the
The goal of the SRTM Mission is not to create data samples for silly games, it will provide a homogeneous global digital elevation model DEM with 30m pixel size and 6 m height resolution. The applications reach from mobile phone communication support to military and ecological applications. The advantage of the radar mapping is, that you get recent information on the real topography, including buildings and land cove, that You do not get from DEMs, derived from topographic maps.
Indeed it is posted on a German site, simply because the X-SAR is a German instrument. But as we know that some people have deficite in understandig foreign languages, we create our Web-pages both in German and English. So you should be able to understand without plugging your babelfish into the network.
The expected amount of data from the German/Italian X-SAR is around 3 Terabyte. The american SIR-C system will deliver more than 6 Terabyte, because its swath width is 225 km instead of 50 km for the X-SAR. In the german archive we use a robot archive, that can handle these data automatically, access will be possible through our user interface http://eoweb.dlr.de/
Slashdot Mirror
Thank You Scott for Your comment, I happen to be one of these guys being responsible for the web-server, offering images from the recent shuttle mission. In fact we did not expect that amount of public interest, so we had to face some kind of attack, a constant load of 600.000 to 800.000 accessses/day. Most of them came from the U.S becauese NASA-JPL had a constant link to our web site. see our statistics at www.dfd.dlr.de/stats/srtm/ On Thursday we set up some mirror sites at JPL as well as in Germany, and we also moved our local server to a more powerful workstation, now things work definitely better. It is interesting to see that many of the comments posted by slashdot users reveal that they do not understand that this mission is a joint American-German cooperation, that the imagery on our server comes from the german-italian X-SAR instrument and that all data have been processed at the German Remote Sensing Data Center. As far as I know the JPL colleagus had some problem with the DOD with respect to posting their imagery to th web. But anyhow, our cooperation has been excellent thoughout the mission, and as everything worked so well, a follow-on mission will be most probable. Then also the remaining white spots in betwen +/- 60 degrees latitude can be filled. All data will be made available through our user interface http://eoweb.dlr.de/ as soon as they have been processed. Best wishes Hans-Joachim Lotz-Iwen
The Shuttle Radar Topography Mapping Mission is a joint U.S.-German project. On board are two radar systems SIR-C (american) and X-SAR (german)that have been flown in earlier missions in 1994. Primary goal of the recent mission is the generation of a digital elevation model of the earths surface in between +/- 60 degrees latitude. Data will be processed both at the German Aerospace Center DLR and at NASA JPL, and first results are being displayed at their Web-sites www.nasa-jpl.gov/srtm and www.dfd.dlr.de/srtm As for the German site we have roughly 1 million accesses per day, mainly from U.S. users. This has put an unexspeced load to our configuration. So we recently agreed upon with JPL, that they will mirror our entire site on their server. This will hopefully improve download times. The entire data amount of the mission will be roughly 3 Terabyte for the X-SAR and more than 6 TByte for the SIR-C. There will be full exchange of data between both partners. The data catalog will be accessible through eoweb.dlr.de once the data have been processed. The pixel size is exspected to be 30m and the relative height resolution to be 6m (X-SAR) and 10m (SIR-C)
The SRTM mission is a joint american/german mission, and the evaluation of the data is being performed in close co-operation of teams from both space agencies NASA and DLR. As a result, the presentation of results within the internet servers at JPL and DLR does not have the character of a competition. The acquisition plan of both instruments X-SAR and SIR-C on board is more or less fixed, and each agency has been prepared for processing pre-defined data takes. So, what is the sense of your message??
Some infos from the german web site operators: - we had to suffer an unexpected interest of more than 3 million accesses to our SRTM webpages since friday - we have agreed upon with NASA-JPL, that they will mirror our pages, so U.S. users will not have to use the transatlantic bottleneck - indeed the data files are big, and so will be the video animations that follow now, but if You want quality you must accept that - all imagery will be kept on the server, so you can download it later (the mission ends next tuesday/wednesday) if you are upset with the recent status
Some technical infos from the operators of the German web-site: - since the launch of the shuttle mission on friday we had to manage more than 3 million user accesses, - as NASA-JPL links directly to our site, the load is distributed such, that the maximum access being recorded at local midnight MET, the best time for downloading i still between 7 and 8 a.m. MET. see: www.dfd.dlr.de/stats/srtm/ - we have agreed upon with NASA-JPL that they will mirror our complete SRTM-site next time, so that U.S. users do not have to use the transatlantic bottleneck (we know that our data traffic has significantly enhanced the data load by 30 Mb/s H.J. Lotz-Iwen DLR-DFD - the
The goal of the SRTM Mission is not to create data samples for silly games, it will provide a homogeneous global digital elevation model DEM with 30m pixel size and 6 m height resolution. The applications reach from mobile phone communication support to military and ecological applications. The advantage of the radar mapping is, that you get recent information on the real topography, including buildings and land cove, that You do not get from DEMs, derived from topographic maps.
Indeed it is posted on a German site, simply because the X-SAR is a German instrument. But as we know that some people have deficite in understandig foreign languages, we create our Web-pages both in German and English. So you should be able to understand without plugging your babelfish into the network.
The expected amount of data from the German/Italian X-SAR is around 3 Terabyte. The american SIR-C system will deliver more than 6 Terabyte, because its swath width is 225 km instead of 50 km for the X-SAR. In the german archive we use a robot archive, that can handle these data automatically, access will be possible through our user interface http://eoweb.dlr.de/