Planetary Data Center records (OF.1X.12)

Administrative History

The Planetary Data Center at Brown University opened in the spring of 1981 in the Sciences Library at Brown. It was dedicated to the memory of Thomas A. Mutch, who was the founder of Brown's planetary geology group. Professor James Head was its first director. In 1984 the Center was moved to the Lincoln Field Building on the Brown campus.

The Planetary Data Center is now known as the Northeast Planetary Data Center. It provides planetary geology data to researchers, educators, media and the general public. It houses a vast amount of data obtained by the U.S. Space Program from 1962 to the present. The Data Center collection contains a wide range of primary sources including photographic prints, negatives, transparencies, maps, mission support documents, digital media and scientific reference books from the various NASA missions conducted over the past forty years. Several workstations are available, as well as film and paper scanners and printers.

The Center is operated through a cooperative agreement between NASA's Planetary Geology and Geophysics Program and Brown University. The Data Center is part of a network of Regional Planetary Image Facilities located throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan.