One Giant Leap For SpectrumData

January 23, 2007: Data gathered from the Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 moon landings will be stored by SpectrumData after the Perth-based company was chosen by NASA to undertake the work.

SpectrumData has assisted in the retrieval of 200 magnetic tapes containing data generated from the Lunar Dust Detector Experiment. The data was gather shortly after Neil Armstrong’s historic walk in July 1969 and contains valuable information on dust and temperatures on the moon.

Previously stored by the physics department at Curtin University of Technology for the past 37 years, the tapes are now stored in SpectrumData’s purpose-built security vault at Technology Park, Bentley. SpectrumData will also be involved in further analysis and processing of the tapes to attempt to recover additional lunar information.

Guy Holmes, CEO of SpectrumData, says their initial analysis of the tapes indicates they are in good condition. “We’ll spend the next few weeks inspecting the integrity of the tapes for future recovery of the data,” he says. “We will sort them into logical order from day one of the moon mission through to re-entry of the craft into the Earth’s atmosphere.”

SpectrumData will also take images of the fading tape labels to preserve their content. The tapes will be bar-coded and catalogued while their media is audited to determine if SpectrumData will move forward in recovering their data.

SpectrumData is involved in a number of other data recover missions including work with the Ethiopian Government, Sri Lankan Government, New Zealand, Japan as well as exploration companies in Indonesia, Kenya, Thailand and Malaysia.

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