The world's premier space agency has joined the search for a Malaysian commercial jetliner that vanished into thin air over the weekend.

On Monday (March 10), NASA began examining ways it can contribute to the search for Malaysian Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared shortly after takeoff on Friday (March 7), agency officials said.

"Activities under way include mining data archives of satellite data acquired earlier and using space-based assets, such as the Earth-Observing-1(EO-1) satellite and the ISERV camera on the International Space Station, to acquire new images of possible crash sites," NASA spokesman Allard Beutel told Space.com via email. "The resolution of images from these instruments could be used to identify objects of about 98 feet (30 meters) or larger."

In addition, Beutel added, NASA will be sending relevant data to the U.S. Geological Survey's Earth Resources Observations and Science Hazard Data Distribution System, which facilitates the sharing of information whenever the International Charter on Space and Major Disasters is activated.

The disappearance of Flight 370 calls to mind Air France Flight 447, which vanished over the Atlantic Ocean in June 2009, shortly after taking off from Rio de Janeiro en route to Paris. It took five days to locate the wreckage of Flight 447 and nearly two years to find and recover the jet's "black boxes" from the ocean floor.

READ MORE: NASA Joins Hunt for Missing Malaysian Passenger Jet