yee@trident.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) (02/07/91)
Sarah Keegan Headquarters, Washington, D.C. February 6, 1991 (Phone: 202/453-2754) RELEASE: 91-20 NASA TO PLAY KEY ROLE IN NATIONAL COMPUTING INITIATIVE NASA will be a major participant in the multi-agency High Performance Computing and Communication (HPCC) Program slated to begin in Fiscal Year 1992. This ambitious federal effort will extend U.S. leadership in state-of-the-art computers and communications, disseminate and apply HPCC technology to critical national challenges and will spur gains in U.S. productivity and industrial competitiveness. NASA has the lead role in coordinating interagency software and algorithm research and development. In addition, the agency's program has significant activities in all four components of the Federal program. In the High Performance Computing Systems (HPCS) area, NASA centers will purchase advanced testbeds from industry and use testbeds developed by the Department of Defense (DoD) to evaluate and build initial applications. Results will be fed back to the HPCS vendors and DoD for use in succeeding generations of computers. Under the Advanced Software Technology and Algorithms (ASTA) component, NASA research teams will develop software to solve major computational challenges in scientific modeling, engineering design and real-time robotic control. To support the National Research and Education Network (NREN) goal of a coast-to-coast research linkup, NASA centers will be equipped with the latest network communications and routing technology. These systems will be used for intercenter collaboration and to support non-NASA users of the advanced HPCS testbeds. In connection with the Basic Research and Human Resources (BRHR) component of the Federal program, NASA will expand the HPCC research program executed by NASA-funded research institutes and through NASA grants to universities. NASA's program has three main projects closely related to the agency's primary missions and a crosscutting basic research element. The Computational Aerosciences (CAS) project is led by Ames Research Center, Mountain View, Calif., with contributions from Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va., and Lewis Research Center, Cleveland. CAS technology will make it possible to model critical system interactions in advanced aerospace vehicles, such as next-generation supersonic transports, that cannot be done due to the limitations of today's supercomputers. The Earth and Space Sciences (ESS) computing project is led by Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., with contributions from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The major goal of ESS is to support collaborative simulation and modeling of complex, large-scale, multidisciplinary Earth and space phenomena. For instance, the interactions among Earth's atmosphere, oceans and land masses must be modeled with sufficient spatial resolution to produce accurate long-term predictions of atmospheric circulation. Existing computers restrict spatial resolution to unreasonably large scales and require execution times that are prohibitively long. The third major NASA project is Remote Experimentation and Exploration (REE), led by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, with Langley Research Center as a partner. REE will develop a prototype high performance computing system that could serve as an on-board supercomputer to support future space missions. In robotic exploration of Mars, for example, the great distances separating Earth and the Red Planet produce a time lag of up to 45 minutes between transmission of a command and receipt of confirmation that the command has been executed. Automated Mars explorers must be equipped with highly autonomous systems that, in turn, require considerable computational power. With HPCC funding, NASA will increase the high performance computing and communication budgets of its university-based Centers of Excellences and research institutes affiliated with NASA centers. In addition, the agency may create new university centers of excellence as funding allows. A portion of the funding will be set aside to encourage students to work at NASA's field centers, which will allow the students to get first hand experience in NASA HPCC applications and mission requirements. NASA has been heavily involved in the planning and coordination of the HPCC program for several years through the Federal Coordinating Council on Science, Engineering and Technology (FCCSET). As directed by Congress, NASA began to increase its high performance computing activities in FY 1991. Other agencies participating in the HPCC program are the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.