2026-11-04 –, Seminar Room 1
Astronomy is entering an era in which several major facilities are simultaneously operating, or standing up, science platforms designed to deliver petabyte-scale data and computing to their communities. As missions and observatories move from data collection to data delivery at scale, they are independently converging on similar architectural choices — and independently running into similar operational challenges — around federated access, compute-to-data, authentication, and long-term sustainability. This BoF is proposed by confirmed panelists from Euclid/ESA Datalabs, Vera Rubin Observatory, the SKA Regional Centre Network (SRCNet), Roman Telescope, CADC/CANFAR, NASA/Fornax and LOFAR. Other platforms are invited to join the discussion to compare architectures, operational lessons, and user-facing services for large-scale science platforms and workflows.
With Euclid's Data Release 1 (DR1), a full year of Vera Rubin Observatory operations, the launch of the Roman Space Telescope, and SKA Low's science verification getting underway next year, the timing is ideal to take stock of what's working, what isn't, and where the community could converge — on topics such as federated data access, compute-to-data models, interoperability standards, and the balance between bespoke platform development and shared infrastructure. Panellists will open the session with a short position statement on how their platform is architected and operated today, before the floor opens to a moderated discussion aimed at surfacing common challenges and concrete opportunities for collaboration across observatories.
The panel candidates have been contacted and confirmed, leaving the project to decide on the main panellist. The other confirmed members will join the discussion forum to provide additional details about the project. The confirmed composition is:
ESA - 1 member of: Sandor Kruk (Euclid, ESA) (panellist) + Christophe Arviset (ESA); Javier Ballester (ESA Datalabs); Marcos Lopez-Caniego Alcarria (Euclid, ESA)
LOFAR- 1 member of: Yan Grange (ASTRON/LOFAR); John Swinbank (ASTRON/LOFAR) — Check possible attendance clashes with other ADASS events
CADC- 1 member of: JJ Kavelaars (CADC/CANFAR); Patrick Dowler (CADC/CANFAR); Brian Major (CADC/CANFAR)
Vera Rubin- 1 member of: William O'Mullane (Vera Rubin/LSST); Tim Jenness (Vera Rubin/LSST); Frossie Economou (Vera Rubin/LSST)
NASA/Fornax- 1 member of: Andrew Sawyers (NASA/Fornax)
Roman Telescope- 1 member of: Kristen McQuinn (Roman Telescope); Gisella de Rosa (Roman Telescope); Claire Murray (Roman Telescope/Roman Research Nexus) - Remote attendance
SKAO/SRCNet- 1 member of: Jesus Salgado (SKAO), Rosie Bolton (SKAO)
I am a Systems Engineer at the European Space Agency (ESA), working on the design, evolution, and operation of cloud-based platforms. My work focuses on systems architecture, cloud infrastructure, DevOps, and platform engineering, building reliable, scalable, and efficient environments across modern cloud ecosystems.
Astronomer and Data Scientist with over 20 years of experience supporting astronomy space missions from ESA, NASA and JAXA. Currently working as Innovation Lead in SSC Space and R&D engineer at the ESAC Science Data Center working on world-class space missions like Euclid, JWST and HST. Some of these missions are producing peta-byte scale data sets and we are developing science archives and platforms with the tools that scientists need to discover and consume this data.
Working in the ASTRON Science Data Centre group as product owner of the services development team.
Data Scientist at ESA's European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC) in Spain, where I work on AI and data science solutions for space science. I support the Euclid mission through the development of data analysis tools and science platforms.
Jesús Salgado is SRCNet Development Lead and Software Architect at SKAO, leading the development and evolution of the software architecture supporting the SKA Regional Centres Network. Previously, he was Astronomical Archive Lead at ESA’s European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC), where he worked on the development and operation of astronomical data archives. His expertise spans distributed systems, data infrastructure, and large-scale scientific computing.
Christophe Arviset is the Head of the Data Science and Archives Division, within the Science and Operations Department of ESA’s Directorate of Science at the European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC) in Spain, close to Madrid. This includes the ESAC Science Data Centre, hosting data archives of more than 20 ESA space science missions, various data science activities in this context, as well as responsibility of all IT infrastructure and services for the Directorate. He has been playing an active part of international data alliances (International Virtual Observatory Alliance, International Planetary Data Alliance and International Heliophysics Data Environment Alliance) since their creation. He had been chairing the IVOA over 2014-2016 and in 2023 and the IPDA over 2019-2021. Initially Computer Science engineer by training, he has developed more than 30 years of experience in space science operations with special focus on science data management, data archives, long term data preservation in the context of international collaboration.
Moved up the satellite chain from control systems in the European Space Operations Centre to the science end of the missions in ESTEC and discovered Gaia. Started with C++ and moved on to Java and Enterprise level systems. Did some serious ground breaking numerical programming in Java.
Managed a reasonable sized team and collaborated with the 300+ scientists and programmers on the Gaia Data Processing project. Next became responsible for all the science ground segments in ESAC Spain as manager of managers.
Now responsible for all the data comming from Rubin Observatory and getting it to the community.
Astronomer at the Onsala Space Observatory. Currently SRCNet Science Delivery lead. Perviously at European ALMA Regional Centre Network and LOFAR.
Development lead at the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre (CADC).