Virtual Solar Observatory
Extended Outage of SDO/HMI, SDO/AIA, and IRIS Data Processing and JSOC Data Service
Posted by: Todd Hoeksema
On Tuesday November 26 a 4-inch chilled-water pipe in the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) Joint Science Operations Center (JSOC) server room broke. This caused major flooding in the building and extensive water damage in the lab that houses the machines that process and distribute data from the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) and Atmospheric Imaging Array (AIA) instruments and from the IRIS spacecraft. The Stanford JSOC team is working to assess the extent of the damage, but it is severe. Science data processing for HMI, AIA, and IRIS will be down for an extended length of time, as will access to the archived data at JSOC.
Please consult SOC_Emergency_Resources for possible ways to gain limited access to some earlier SDO data. IRIS Level 2 data through November 22, 2024 remain available at [iris.lmsal.com/search iris.lmsal.com/search/].
The data capture systems for all three instruments remain functional, so ultimately incoming data are not expected to be lost. Instrument health and safety monitoring is being handled at the Instrument Operations Center at the Lockheed Martin Solar & Astrophysics Lab (LMSAL). The instruments continue to function normally.
The team will provide updates as more information becomes available. We deeply regret any inconvenience and appreciate your patience as our team prioritizes the repair and recovery of the affected systems.
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The VSO is a tool for investigating the physics of the Sun. Users may search existing databases for terrestrial and space-based observations, hiding the details of where the data is and what’s needed to get it. A researcher can use the VSO to search across multiple instruments and events, to find datasets of interest, and having done that, transparently download them to their workstation.
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The VSO Documentation Site is being updated
2022 November 30
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User Questions
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