Open Science Data Repository (OSDR)

The NASA Open Science Data Repository (OSDR) enables access to space-related data from experiments and missions that investigate biological and health responses of terrestrial life to spaceflight. The goal of OSDR is to enable multi-modal and multi-hierarchical fundamental space life science data be reused toward basic science, applied science, and operational outcomes for space exploration and knowledge discovery. These data include ‘omics, phenotypic, physiological, behavioral, hardware, environmental telemetry; raw, processed; tabular, text, code, bioimaging, and video.

Established in November of 2022, OSDR was an integration of three NASA repositories to support NASA’s commitment to the principles of Open Science, open data, and sharing: the Ames Life Sciences Data Archive (ALSDA), GeneLab, and the NASA Biological Institutional Scientific Collection (NBISC). ALSDA is the repository of data mostly from model organisms, but also from non-NASA human astronauts, spanning a broad range of biological levels including data from tissues, organs, whole organisms, physiology, environmental telemetry, and behavior. GeneLab is an Open Science repository hosting multi-omics spaceflight and space-relevant data (including transcriptomics, metagenomics, epigenomics, proteomics, and metabolomics) from model organisms and non-NASA human astronauts. GeneLab also enables federated metadata searches for data mining across several non-NASA omics databases for increased data findability. NBISC is a biorepository with tens of thousands non-human (i.e., rodent, microbial) unused samples collected from NASA-funded spaceflight and space-relevant ground/analog studies. Biospecimens archived from missions are available for request by any researcher.

OSDR includes not only the integrated biological data repository, but also a web-based submission portal, GeneLab’s ‘omics data visualization/analysis tools, the Biological Data Management Environment (BDME), a Biospecimen search tool, and an online Research Data Submission Agreement (RDSA) tool. The BDME supports investigators for self-service metadata curation and data submission within FAIR Guidelines (i.e., making data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable). The BDME also gives users a collaborative online workspace to share, organize, and store files throughout the course of an experiment/mission. The RDSA tool guides NASA investigators through the process of defining data products, assays, and/or tissues for submission to a NASA data repository and helps investigators meet the obligations of their NASA grants.

OSDR is designed to help scientists discover and access datasets to perform primary, secondary, and meta-analyses. It is committed to ensuring that data is of high reliable quality, as open-access as possible, and as closed/secure as necessary. OSDR provides submitters with submission guidance, a protected workspace, and storage. Funded predominantly by the NASA Space Biology Program within the NASA Biological and Physical Sciences Division of the NASA Science Mission Directorate, but also by the NASA Human Research Program, OSDR maximizes the scientific return from NASA-funded research, encourages community participation in the analysis of data toward new discoveries, has space-relevant tissues available for scientific request, and offers the world reusable space life science data so the public can be involved in the quest for space exploration.