NASA's primary role in the HPCC Program includes leading the development of applications software and algorithms for scalable parallel computing systems that will increase system performance to the sustained teraFLOPS (trillion floating point operations per second) level for NASA applications. As HPCC technologies are developed, NASA will use them to solve its Grand Challenge research problems. These are fundamental problems whose solutions require significant increases in computational power and are critical to meeting national needs. NASA's Grand Challenges include:
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Improving the design and simulation of advanced aerospace vehicles;
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Enabling people at remote locations to communicate more effectively and share information;
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Increasing scientists' abilities to model the Earth's climate and forecast global environmental trends; and |
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Improving the capabilities of advanced spacecraft to explore the Earth and solar system.
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NASA has initiated a program component to broaden the reach of the HPCC Program and begin the development of a National Information Infrastructure by supporting research and development in education, digital library technology, and access to Earth and space science data. The FY 1997 NASA HPCC Program has been organized into four vertically integrated computing projects:
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The Computational Aerosciences (CAS) project;
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The Earth and Space Sciences (ESS) project;
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The Remote Exploration and Experimentation (REE) project; and |
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The Information Infrastructure Technology and Applications (IITA) component.
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The REE project, inactive from FY 1993 through FY 1995, resumed activities in FY 1996, beginning with program definition and planning. This project seeks to provide scalable space borne computing to enable affordable and frequent missions involving powerful micro-instruments on sophistication miniature spacecraft to meet the exciting and challenging space science needs of the next century. The goal of REE is to demonstrate high performance computing capabilities for space borne applications afforded by a scalable family of low-cost, low power flight computers.
In cooperation with other participating Federal agencies, NASA's program involves deployment of experimental, scalable supercomputer capabilities essential for computational design of integrated aerospace vehicle systems and for predicting long-term global changes.
NASA conducts a series of workshops that address Federal HPCC Program needs in software technologies and algorithms, computational aerosciences, and supercomputing testbeds. NASA is responsible for implementing the National HPCC Software Exchange to foster software sharing and reuse across the Federal HPCC Program. NASA also is acquiring hardware for computational science testbeds and developing software tools to enhance productivity, including load balancing tools, run time optimizers, monitors, parallelization tools as well as data management and visualization tools.
The agency's NREN activity provides high-speed network connections among NASA, industry, and academic researchers.
NASA's Basic Research and Human Resources component encourages research into the underlying theory and concepts of high performance computing and will foster research in high performance computing at NASA centers, research institutes and universities.
The IITA component consists of critical information technologies and the application of these technologies to "National Challenges," problems where the application of HPCC technology can provide huge benefits to all Americans.
FY 97 President's Request by Program Component Area
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| Program Activity | Budget Account Code | Partner/User Agencies | Budget (BA, $ M) | HPCC PCAs by 1997 Pres. Request | |||||||
| FY95 Actual | FY96 Pres. | FY96 Est. | FY97 Rqst. | HECC | LSN | HCS | HuCS | ETHR | |||
| Testbeds | 509-10, 509-20, 509-30, 234, 536 | DARPA, NSF, DOE | 25.12 | 14.81 | 12.91 | 15.39 | 15.39 | ||||
| Grand Challenge Support | 509-10, -20, -30, 505, 535-538, 212, 232, 233, 306, 656 | NSF, DOE, NOAA, EPA | 59.00 | 59.84 | 59.84 | 57.75 | 56.75 | 1.00 | |||
| Systems Software | 509-10, 509-20, 509-30 | EPA, NOAA, NSA, NIH | 8.04 | 10.02 | 10.02 | 10.96 | 7.56 | 3.40 | |||
| NREN | 509-10, -20, 428, 538 | DOE, DARPA, ED, NOAA | 14.32 | 20.85 | 20.85 | 15.30 | 15.30 | ||||
| BRHR | 509-10, -20, 233 | NSF, NIH, NOAA, EPA | 3.59 | 3.98 | 3.98 | 3.20 | 3.20 | ||||
| Information Infrastructure Technology | 509-40 | DARPA, NSF, DOE, NIH, ED | 7.20 | 8.80 | 8.80 | 3.50 | 3.50 | ||||
| Information Infrastucture Applications | 509-40 | NOAA, EPA, ED | 14.13 | 18.00 | 10.20 | 4.00 | 4.00 | ||||
| Totals: | 131.40 | 136.30 | 126.60 | 110.10 | 87.20 | 15.30 | 1.00 | 3.40 | 3.20 | ||
Comparison of FY 97 and FY96 Budgets by Program Component Area
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| Program Activity | Budget (BA, $ M) | HPCC PCAs by 1997 Pres. Request | HPCC PCAs by 1996 Estimated | |||||||||||
| FY95 Actual | FY96 Pres. | FY96 Est. | FY97 Rqst. | HECC | LSN | HCS | HuCS | ETHR | HECC | LSN | HCS | HuCS | ETHR | |
| Testbeds | 25.12 | 14.81 | 12.91 | 15.39 | 15.39 | 12.91 | ||||||||
| Grand Challenge Support | 59.00 | 59.84 | 59.84 | 57.75 | 56.75 | 1.00 | 52.62 | 6.60 | 0.62 | |||||
| Systems Software | 8.04 | 10.02 | 10.02 | 10.96 | 7.56 | 3.40 | 10.02 | |||||||
| NREN | 14.32 | 20.85 | 20.85 | 15.30 | 15.30 | 20.85 | ||||||||
| BRHR | 3.59 | 3.98 | 3.98 | 3.20 | 3.20 | 3.98 | ||||||||
| Information Infrastructure Technology | 7.20 | 8.80 | 8.80 | 3.50 | 3.50 | 8.80 | ||||||||
| Information Infrastucture Applications | 14.13 | 18.00 | 10.20 | 4.00 | 4.00 | 10.20 | ||||||||
| Totals: | 131.40 | 136.30 | 126.60 | 110.10 | 87.20 | 15.30 | 1.00 | 3.40 | 3.20 | 75.55 | 27.45 | 23.60 | ||
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