3 MIN READ Lauren Leese Blog UPDATED Jul 9, 2026 PUBLISHED Jul 7, 2026 Amazon Web Services (AWS) and NASA have entered into a Space Act Agreement to explore best practices around discovery, access, and use of high-value NASA science datasets in the AWS Registry of Open Data. In May 2026, NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS) at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland added data from over 300 Earth science data sources (which AWS refers to as “datasets”) to the repository. As a result, the AWS platform now hosts data from over 1,000 different missions and projects for the first time.The datasets that ESDIS contributed to the repository include observations from NASA satellites, as well as data products derived from missions run by the agency’s partners such as NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA’s Earth Science Division alone manages over 170 petabytes of open data, serving over 8 million users each year. The agency plans to move all NASA Earth science data into the AWS cloud by the end of 2026. ESDIS will also add tutorials and notebooks to the datasets to make them even easier to use.The Registry of Open Data contains datasets from many organizations, but datasets from NASA and its partner agencies make up the plurality as of June 2026. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), a NASA-funded science operations center that handles data from NASA’s flagship astrophysics spacecraft such as the James Webb Space Telescope and Hubble Space Telescope, also provides data from over a dozen missions on the platform. Image Key personnel in the NASA-AWS open data collaboration. From left to right: Chris Stoner (AWS Open Environmental and Geospatial Data Lead), Doug Newman (NASA ESDIS Science Data Systems Lead), Dave Appel (AWS Vice President of Global Government), Andrew Mitchell (NASA Deputy Chief Science Data Officer), Kevin Murphy (NASA Chief Science Data Officer/Acting Chief Data Officer and Chief AI Officer), and Jamie Baker (AWS Director of Global Civilian Health, Science, and Public Policy). The ESDIS datasets added to the AWS repository were already free and public, thanks to NASA’s longtime policy of making science data open for anyone to use. However, hosting the data on a commercial cloud platform allows users to work with data in the cloud without having to download enormous datasets, undertake time-consuming preprocessing, or run complicated models on their own computers. This broadens opportunities for conducting studies more quickly and easily.In addition to Earth science data, the Registry of Open Data also hosts some of NASA’s astrophysics, biological and physical sciences, heliophysics, and planetary science datasets. Many of the datasets in the Registry of Open Data are optimized for training artificial intelligence and machine learning models.With data continuing to flow from recently launched missions such as NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar), and new missions like the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on the horizon, the amount of science data from NASA spacecraft will increase even further over the coming years. Making these data available in the cloud will encourage ambitious scientific studies and accelerate science discovery into the future.For more, see NASA Datasets on the AWS Registry of Open Data.