Attachment_A.pdf

ENCLOSURE 1 RFQ No. 80GSFC18Q0008

ATTACHMENT A

STATEMENT OF WORK

SEPTEMBER 2017

Earth Science Magnetic Tape Data Recovery

September 2017

The Goddard Earth Science Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC) project within Code 610.2 at the Goddard Space Flight Center has been tasked with recovering unique scientific data from magnetic tapes that are well past their expected media life. The recovery of this data will extend the earth science data record for many types of measurements back through the early 1960s. In many cases these tapes are fragile and the strength of the imbedded signal significantly degraded. In addition, the early drives on which these tapes were written were manually aligned and differences in alignments between drives could also make the tapes difficult to read. The data is on a variety of tape media which includes: 7-track tapes, 9-track tapes, 3480 tapes, and 8 mm tapes.

The expected capabilities of the recovery process include:

1. Inventory the shipment of magnetic tapes and compare to the provided inventory. Report to

NASA GSFC technical representative whether the shipment is complete or note any discrepancies.

2. Take a digital photo of the physical media to capture the label information in order to become part of the media inventory. A digital photo shall be provided for each tape. The purpose of this is to capture all the external label information, much of which could be hand written. Potentially, there could be information on the back of the tape, in which case, two images may be required.

3. Recover/transcribe the data from magnetic tapes to a binary (8-bit byte) data file. The contractor shall:

- Provide a description of the process for reading the data from the tapes. Specifically, address any processes for delivery with anomalous issues, such as, misaligned tapes, sticky tapes, broken hubs, etc.

- Provide a description of the transcribed data format, specifically addressing the conversion of

7-track tape formats into 8-bit byte data formats.

- Provide a description of the transcribed data format, specifically addressing the conversion of

9-bit track tape formats into 8-bit byte data formats.

- Read the entire length of each media to ensure all possible data is recovered.

- Read the reel media at reduced speeds to reduce stress and friction.

- Handle media tracking issues, such as those resulting from degraded signal strength or alignment issues.

- Handle the problems of old media, including, but not limited to, sticky tapes and dry-rotted plastic hubs, including capability to bake the tapes to remove excess moisture.

4. Provide an inventory list showing the mapping between NASA tape number and recovered file, including digital picture of each media and labels.

- Provide a description of the inventory file format

- Each recovered tape should include the following:

o Tape ID from NASA Inventory o File ID (filename) for data file corresponding to tape o File photo ID(s) for digital photo(s) of tape label o .csv file ID for .csv file corresponding to data file o Description of any recovery anomalies. If recovery is unsuccessful, a description of the recovery failure

5. Provide a .csv (comma separated value) inventory file of the individual file marks recovered from each tape to clearly identify the beginning and end of individual files on the media, number of records per file, number of bytes per record, and end of tape marker.

- Provide a description of the inventory file format

- For each tape, a .csv (comma separated values) file shall be created and at a minimum include:

o Number of individual files o Location of Begin mark of file o Location End mark of file o Number of records in file o Number of bytes per record o Location of end of tape marker

6. Provide a description for the final disposal of the tapes. Upon written permission from the NASA technical representative after successful recovery, tapes shall be formally disposed. At a minimum, this shall include removal of all labels and rendering the media unreadable.