The ESA Human and Robotic Exploration Directorate (HRE) has been in charge, for many years now, of supporting the development of research and technologies in space. This includes the sponsoring of investigations belonging to a large variety of research fields (e.g. human physiology, biology, physical sciences and radiation) conducted not only onboard the International Space Station (ISS), but also on other platforms including parabolic flights, drop towers, bedrests, and upcoming exploration missions like the Lunar Gateway, Moon Surface operations and Mars missions.

Until now, due mainly to the heterogeneity of the investigations, the management of the generated data has been very dependent on the nature of their scientific discipline and there has not been a centralised system for storing and making accessible the results of these HRE investigations.

HRE moved towards establishing a systematic archiving process for all its activities related to historical, present and future missions. Seeking for synergy with the in-house ESA Science Data Centre located at European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC), the HRE Science Data Center (HRE-SDC), located in Madrid, is the entity tasked with organising the (long-term) preservation of all existing HRE datasets and to ensure that all future HRE datasets can be distributed to the scientific community with a high quality of service. The experience of the HRE-SDC team in operating microgravity experiments and ESAC’s deep knowledge in archiving science data has resulted in a successful collaboration that has already taken its first steps.

The data archived can be accessed through the HRE Data Archive (HREDA) web portal.