The first best practice aimed to onboard existing platforms to integrate into EarthCODE, and the new platforms that are being onboarded are Euro Data Cube, Deep Earth System Data Lab (DeepESDL), and openEO federation on Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem (CDSE).
EarthCODE is being developed as an open architecture, using open source building blocks and integrating commercial platform services (for Earth Observation (EO) data, processing, storage, etc.). The architecture will offer an effective, efficient and attractive environment to conduct Earth System Science collaboratively, with convenient means to discover, access and work with EO and other geospatial data. It will also manage the full lifecycle of data, code, documentation and other research artifacts of Science Cluster activities, manage end-to-end scientific experiments and interact with the community.
EarthCODE is being developed on top of existing platform services and will leverage the latest tools for managing open data and open-source software. It aims to grow a community of users that contributes open data and methods, discover scientific datasets and workflows, access advanced computing resources and collaborate to advance earth science. The project will incrementally develop, by integrating readily available EO cloud services and open-source building blocks provided by European industry, through a yearly best practice procurement process. It also serves as a platform for Open Science capacity building, scientific communication and international cooperation.
The first best practice procurement focused on three workstreams:
- Workstream 1: platforms with the ability to conduct scientific work with large capabilities near the data
- Workstream 2: provision of capabilities for one or more platforms to develop and publish interoperable workflows
- Workstream 3: development of a science user community base
Following this, Telespazio UK and ESA have awarded contracts to several new subcontractors. EOX, who was an existing partner, was awarded further work in collaboration with Polar View, Eurac Research, Lampata and Versioneer, and will be working on the integration of EOxHub, CoCalc (Collaborative Calculation), Euro Data Cube and Polar Thematic Exploitation Platform (PolarTEP), covering all three workstreams. Brockmann Consult, partnering with EOX, will be working on the integration of DeepESDL, covering Workstream 2. Finally, VITO will be working on the integration of the openEO federation on CDSE, covering both Workstreams 1 & 2.
Alexandra Barker, Deputy Head of Marketing and Sales, Telespazio UK, said: “EarthCODE will deliver a cloud-based, user-centric development environment providing a reusable Science R&D repository to support the execution of science projects. By starting to integrate existing platforms that already support FAIR and Open Science, we move one step closer to providing a seamless experience for users and developers to access data, compute resources, services and tooling.”
Anca Anghelea, the ESA Technical Officer for this project, said: “With EarthCODE, we are taking a significant step forward in realising ESA's vision for EO Open Science and Innovation, as outlined in its latest EO Science Strategy. Together with its sister initiative, APEx, EarthCODE will leverage European technology to accelerate the transition from scientific discovery to innovation, driving impactful Earth Action."
The EarthCODE team anticipates running a second best practice to integrate more platforms in the first quarter of 2025.