PROJECT PARTNERS  CNRS-INSU (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique-Institut National des Sciences de l'Univers) CNRS-INSU coordinates the French participation in the VO through the Action Spécifique Observatoires Virtuels France (Specific Action France Virtual Observatory – AS OV). AS OV is supported by INSU and CNES, and coordinates the French participation to the VO from most French Observatories. The EuroVO-DCA project is coordinated by the Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS - INSU/Université Louis Pasteur), a major participant in the development of the VO at the international and national levels, and a partner of the European FP5 AVO RTD project and FP6 VO-TECH Design Study. CDS publishes widely used reference services in the VO.  ESA (European Space Agency) The European Space Agency is Europe's gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe's space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens in Europe. The Science Programme enhances European capability in space science and applications, builds European industrial technical capacity, and brings together European national space programmes. ESA's centre in Spain, the European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC), holds the associated archives. The ESAC Science Archives Team is developing VO compliant access to all these archives, as well as developing tools and facilities in the context of the Euro-VO Facility Centre with ESO.  ESO (European Southern Observatory) The European Southern Observatory is a European intergovernmental research organisation developing and operating observatories in Chile on behalf of astronomers in 11 member states of the EU. ESO operates the world’s largest astronomical data archive with more than 3000 registered users and provides access to 50 Terabytes of data from ESO telescopes. ESO was the co-ordinating organisation of the FP5 AVO RTD Project and founding member of the IVOA. ESO will participate in the Euro-VO Data Centre Alliance and lead the Euro-VO Facility Centre with ESA. It contributes to several VO-TECH tasks.  INAF (Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica) The Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica - INAF - promotes, realizes and co-ordinates, also within programs of the European Union and international organisms, activity of research in many astronomical fields, in collaboration with the Universities and with other public and private, national and international subjects. It is a network that consisting of Astronomical Observatories and Institutes geographically distributed over the national territory. INAF is also active in the fields of GRID technologies (deployment of infrastructure and integration of domain-specific applications) and archives of astronomical data (from both ground-based and space-borne facilities).  INTA (Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial) INTA (National Institute for Aerospace Technology) is a governmental organization for space-based research and technology. It leads the Spanish Virtual Observatory Project and the Spanish Virtual Observatory Thematic Network, two initiatives funded by the Ministry of Education and Research to enhance and coordinate the participation of the Spanish institutes in the VO framework. INTA possesses at LAEFF the largest Spanish Astronomical Data Centre.  MPG (Max Planck Gesellschaft) The MPG (Max-Planck-Gesellschaft) is represented by the Max-Planck-Institut fuer extraterrestrische Physik (MPE). The German Astrophysical Virtual Observatory (GAVO) is a project led by the MPE, and the Astronomisches Institut Potsdam (AIP) to coordinate the German participation in the VO. It is federating existing archives (European SDSS mirror, enhanced ROSAT archive, Hamburg Quasar Survey, simulated data from the VIRGO consortium "Millennium") and will assist activities towards archiving Planck, MAGIC, RAVE, GAIA and other simulated data. GAVO is developing software tools for federating, accessing and analysing large distributed datasets, and an interface to grid computing. Within the IVOA activities GAVO is participating to the definition of VO standards, with particular emphasis on standards for Theory issues.  NOVA (Nederlandse Onderzoekschool voor Astronomie), legally represented by the University of Groningen NOVA is the National Research school for astronomy in the Netherlands. It is a joint enterprise of five participating Universities (Groningen, Leiden, Amsterdam, Utrecht and Nijmegen), aiming for front-line astronomical research and training and knowledge transfer of young astronomers. The University of Groningen formally and legally represents the NOVA organization.  LU (University of Leicester) The University of Leicester (LU) is one of the UK’s leading research and teaching universities. Within the University, the Department of Physics and Astronomy has one of the largest university-based astronomical research centres in Europe with major programmes in theoretical astrophysics, observational astronomy, space science and instrumentation. Leicester has a strong background in data centre activities, with a leading role in astronomical data archive services through the LEDAS system which has been at the forefront of on-line data access in the UK and in related data centre and astronomical data processing activities. Leicester is also one of the leading institutions in the UK AstroGrid consortium which is developing the UK’s part of the International Virtual Observatory, and a partner in the VO-TECH project. |
EuroVO-DCA Partners
co-funded project