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.