The ISO post-mission archive

ISO (the Infrared Space Observatory) was launched in November 1995 and is now expected to have an operational lifetime of 2.5 years, as compared to the design requirement of 18 months. It is performing astronomical observations at wavelengths from 2.4-240 microns with four instruments; a camera (2.5-18 microns), a photometer (2.5-240 microns), a short-wavelength spectrometer (2.4-45.2 microns) and a long-wavelength spectrometer (43-197 microns). By the end of the mission it will have made in excess of 25,000 high quality Infrared observations which will leave an important astronomical archive. The ISO post-mission archive (PMA) is being designed to fully exploit this legacy by providing access to the data across the Internet. It will provide an on-line service to the data, supporting documentation and software through a WWW interface which has the goals of being friendly for the novice user, flexible for the expert and rapid for everybody.