Sep 28 2010
From The Space Library
RELEASE: 10-296
SUPERCOMPUTING CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS NASA EARTH, SPACE MISSIONS
WASHINGTON -- NASA will showcase the latest achievements in climate simulation, space exploration, aeronautics engineering, science research and supercomputing technology at the 23rd annual Supercomputing 2010 (SC10) meeting. The leading international conference on high-performance computing, networking, storage and analysis will be held Nov. 13-19, 2010, at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans. NASA's SC10 exhibit will feature nearly 50 demonstrations including high-resolution simulations of Hurricane Katrina that give new insight into tropical storm formation and development. The simulations potentially could save lives and reduce property damage. Scientists also will present modeling and simulation projects to predict and analyze potential and actual sources of debris that pose risk to remaining space shuttle missions during launch and in orbit; design and develop next-generation heavy-lift and multipurpose crew vehicles for future exploration of space; and help reduce aircraft landing-gear noise, a major source of noise pollution near metropolitan airports. "Our advanced modeling and simulation tools and expertise are integral to scientific and engineering advancements throughout NASA, said Rupak Biswas, chief of the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "Combined with the power of supercomputers, massive data storage, high-speed networks, computer science expertise and visualization technologies, these numerical computations are critical to agency work ranging from designing more efficient rotorcraft, to advancing our understanding of global climate change, to designing and analyzing new space crew modules, just to name a few. The high-end computing operations at both the NAS facility at Ames and the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS) at the agency's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., have undergone significant expansions to handle the ever-increasing need for computational resources, particularly for Earth science research. This year, the NAS facility completed a series of extensions to NASA's largest supercomputer, Pleiades. The agency increased the system to 84,992 cores, achieving a peak performance of over one petaflop, the ability to do more than one quadrillion floating point operations per second. Pleiades is one of the most cost-effective supercomputers in the world. The recent expansion, in part, supports the NASA Earth Exchange, a new collaboration platform for the Earth science community that provides a mechanism for scientific collaboration and knowledge sharing. In October 2010, NCCS doubled the capacity of its Discover supercomputer. The new cluster provides a scalable system with significantly reduced floor space and highly efficient power and cooling. Discover's combined 29,368 cores yield a peak performance of more than 320 teraflops. "Discover already has begun hosting climate simulation runs for the next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Report that will go back a full millennium and forward to 2100, said Phil Webster, NCCS project manager and chief of the Computational and Information Sciences and Technology Office at Goddard. With our newest processors, NASA scientists plan to perform global weather and climate simulations at resolutions approaching one kilometer, which is the fidelity of many satellite observations. Demonstrations in NASA's exhibit (booth # 3839) represent work by researchers at Ames, Goddard, NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland; NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.; and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., in addition to NASA's various university and corporate partners.
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RELEASE: 10-307
NASA FUNDS NATIONWIDE HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT ROBOTICS PROGRAM
WASHINGTON -- NASA is providing up to $20 million over the next five years to support a national program to inspire student interest in science, technology and mathematics with a focus on robotic technology. The funding is part of a cooperative agreement with the Foundation For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST), a nonprofit organization in Manchester, N.H. FIRST provides students the opportunity to engage with government, industry and university experts for hands-on, realistic exposure to engineering and technical professions. "This is the largest NASA-funded student program geared toward robotics activities, said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. For the next five years, approximately 25,000 students across the country will not only learn from our nation's best and brightest, but also compete and have fun at the same time. The centerpiece of the program is the annual FIRST Robotics Competition. During more than 45 regional competitions, teams of high school students have six weeks to build a robot using an identical kit of parts. There are dimension and weight limitations and other technical restrictions, but teams can determine the look and function of the robots. The regional competitions culminate with an international championship in April. The competition is structured like an athletic event. Teams compete in an area the size of a small basketball court. The robots must have offensive and defensive capabilities. Each team's robot works to accomplish a task, while preventing its opponent from doing the same. The robots must be sturdy because of frequent contact between the machines. "This program has had a direct impact on our ability to mentor U.S. students and help them consider technical careers, said Ed Weiler, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Supporting this program is critical to developing scientists and engineers for future U.S. space exploration. NASA's Robotics Alliance Project (RAP) solicited proposals Oct. 4 from nonprofit and educational institutions to design and administer a robotics outreach competition. RAP, which is sponsored by NASA's Science Mission Directorate and managed from NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., competitively selected FIRST from the candidates. "In addition to financial support, there is considerable time investment and commitment on the part of the NASA engineers and scientists who work with the students, said Solar System Program Executive Dave Lavery of NASA Headquarters. During the past 16 years, the RAP has issued approximately $40 million to academic and nonprofit organizations across the nation to stimulate intellectual capability in fields tied to robotics engineering. All 10 NASA centers participate in the RAP by contributing technology expertise, funding and other resources. NASA is the largest organization involved with FIRST and has participated since 1995. In 1999, NASA and First signed a memorandum of agreement to cooperatively expand the availability of technology development, education and inspiration programs to students throughout the country. U.S. entrepreneur Dean Kamen founded FIRST in 1989 to encourage youth to become leaders in science and technology.
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