The Chandra X-ray Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts (USA) has been given by NASA the job of running the Chandra Observatory. This includes the following tasks:

• To run the proposal peer review that decides which observations should be recommended to NASA to be performed.

• To receive Chandra data from the NASA deep space network at its Operations Control Center (OCC), process the data (SDP) and distribute the products.

• To create and distribute the CIAO data analysis software.