NASA NREN Budget Code: 509-10, -20, 428.538
The National Research and Education Network (NREN) effort will establish standards and provide working models for commercial communications infrastructure deployment. NASA's role is to deploy the advanced communications required by the Grand Challenge investigators in a manner that satisfies the immediate needs of researchers while simultaneously guiding commercial infrastructure development for the nation NASA works with NSF, DOE, ARPA, and other agencies to enhance the national network infrastructure by coordinating the development and implementation of enhanced network technologies and services: integrated voice, video, and computer data transmission; network management and operations tools; protocol standards; routers and switches; security management; emerging high-performance user services including provision of advanced network services for multi-media communications; and K-12 distance learning and outreach applications.

NASA has deployed 45 Mb/s network services between five NASA centers and the NSFNET, significantly improving communications between remote investigators and NASA. An acquisition for advanced telecommunications services on an early availability basis will bring telecommunication and computational standards together to provide a low-cost computer network infrastructure over vendor facilities ultimately targeted at commercial availability. This will take advantage of the latest telecommunications technologies, such as Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) over Synchronous Optical Network Transmission (SONET) services, initially at 45 Mb/s among five NASA centers. Research collaboration with the DoD's Application Technology Demonstration Network (ATDnet) supports interoperability between independently managed NREN networks that are based on ATM technology supplied by multiple vendors.

NASA also is working with other Federal HPCC agencies to extend the reach of NASA's data resources and computing capabilities to K-12 schools, libraries, and teacher resource centers. Further development of digital libraries and other networking infrastructure technologies under the IITA component will promote remote access to NASA HPCC resources, enabling schools and resource centers to collaborate directly with each other over networks on distributed NASA education projects. In order to incorporate satellite-based communications technology into the terrestrial gigabit highways of the future, two experiments are planned for coupling the NREN effort with the NASA's Advanced Communications Technology Satellite (ACTS).
Budget ($ M)
FY 95 Act 14.32
FY 96 Pres 20.85
FY 96 Est 20.85
FY 97 Rqst 15.30
Program Component Areas
  FY 96 FY 97
HECC    
LSN 20.85 15.30
HCS    
HuCS    
ETHR    
Agency Ties
DARPA Partner
NSF Partner
DOE Partner
NASA User
NIH  
NSA  
NIST  
NOAA User
EPA User
ED User
AHCPR  
VA  
Milestone Changes The ACTS experiment was slipped into FY 96 due to delayed availability of the two required high data rate ground terminals.     *****Changed budget from HEC to GSN
FY 1995 Actual Milestones FY 1996 Estimated Milestones FY 1997 Agency Requested Milestones
Completed T-3 (45 Mb/s) Level 3 HPCC interconnects of five NASA centers -- Ames Research center (ARC), Goddard Space Flight center (GSFC), Langley Research center (LaRC), Lewis Research center (LeRC) and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) -- with switched packet network to serve research communities.

Demonstrated satellite-based gigabit applications using the Advanced Communications Technology Satellite (ACTS) and ground terminals.

Interconnected five NASA research centers using 155 Mb/s high speed communication: Ames Research center (ARC), Goddard Space Flight center (GSFC), Langley Research center (LaRC), Lewis Research center (LeRC) and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). 		Complete ACTS experiments "High Data ACTS Experiments for Performing Global Science: Keck Telescope and Global Climate Model".

Operate NREN in support of ESS science investigators and aerospace industrial research partners.

Demonstrate interoperability between independently managed NREN networks that are based on ATM technology supplied by multiple vendors. This capability is critical to NASA in order to meet growing internal requirements while maintaining compatibility with the evolving national network infrastructure that includes other Federal Agency networks as well as the private sector networks that will comprise the NII. 		Interconnect ESS and CAS testbeds at 622 Megabits/s.

Demonstrate network technologies needed for network management, cost accounting, security, and support of high performance applications in the NREN and NII.