The data in question will come from NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS) programme, which collects information from the many missions that observe our planet. NASA makes those readings available through the Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS).

NASA operates a dozen Distributed Active Archive Centres (DAACs) got hacked off with having to ma manage all that. In 2019, it picked AWS to host it all, and started migrating its records to the Amazon cloud as part of a project dubbed Earthdata Cloud.

But NASA's Inspector General noticed EOSDIS hadn't properly modelled what data egress charges where involved in the plan.

The Inspector General's Office wrote: "As a result, current cost projections may be lower than what will actually be necessary to cover future expenses and cloud adoption may become more expensive and difficult to manage.

"Collectively, this presents potential risks that scientific data may become less available to end users if NASA imposes limitations on the amount of data egress for cost control reasons."

NASA apparently has not worked out what to do, and the situation is expected to get worse as there is more data set to go up on the Amazon cloud with its new planned missions.