From: baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Baalke)
Subject:  NASA, Cray to Join in Parallel Supercomputer Research
Followup-To: sci.space
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.3-4   
Keywords:  JPL, Cray
Reply-To: baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 05:11:36 GMT

Drucella Andersen
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                November 16, 1992
(Phone:  202/453-8613)

Paula Cleggett-Haleim
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
(Phone:  202/358-0883)

Franklin O'Donnell
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
(Phone:  818/354-5011)


RELEASE:  92-205

NASA, CRAY TO JOIN IN PARALLEL SUPERCOMPUTER RESEARCH

	NASA is collaborating with Cray Research, Inc., Eagan, Minn., to
conduct joint research and development activities using the company's
most powerful supercomputer.

	The partnership is a NASA response to the multi-agency High
Performance Computing and Communications program, a bold national
initiative to advance U.S. capabilities in supercomputing.

	The computer will be located at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
(JPL), Pasadena, Calif., with the California Institute of Technology,
Pasadena, as a collaborator in the project.

	"The Cray T3D system, together with our expertise in parallel
processing, will allow us to tackle new computational problems in Earth
and space sciences," said Dr. Carl Kukkonen, Supercomputing Project
Manager at JPL.

	"More importantly, we will be able to feed back JPL's and Caltech's
experiences to Cray and thus, contribute to maintaining U.S. leadership
in supercomputing," Kukkonen added.

	"This collaboration will help us address the grand challenges of
Earth and space sciences -- analyzing the enormous data sets from
NASA's Earth and planetary missions," said Joseph Bredekamp of the
Office of Space Science and Applications, NASA Headquarters.  "We
expect that 20 to 25 percent of our scientific computing will be
performed on parallel computers within 3 years."

NASA Applications

	JPL will use the new Cray T3D system for applications that require
high-power computers -- turning planetary data from spacecraft into
three-dimensional animations; electromagnetic simulations for the
design of communications antennas; analyzing Earth satellite data;
studying the dynamics of chemical reactions and the flow of space
plasmas; and computational fluid dynamics.

	"NASA is committed to being an early user of new parallel
supercomputers, and Cray will be an important player," said Lee
Holcomb, Director for the High Performance Computing and
Communications program at NASA Headquarters.

	In the fall of 1993, JPL will receive a Cray T3D system, the
company's new "massively parallel" supercomputer.  The innovative
machine uses 256 processors to reach a peak speed of 38 billion floating
point mathematical operations per second, making it Cray's most
powerful computer.  The effort involves JPL, Cray and the California
Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena.

Center Of Excellence

	Cray has designated JPL/Caltech as one of four "Cray Centers of
Excellence in Parallel Computing."  Under this program, the company
will locate staff engineers at JPL to carry out joint research in parallel
computing techniques.

	Cray President John Carlson said the company chose JPL as a site
for its Center of Excellence program "because of the great expertise
developed at JPL and the Caltech campus in parallel computation."

	The project is funded by NASA's Office of Aeronautics and Office of
Space Science and Applications, Washington, D.C.

-end-
     ___    _____     ___
    /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|     Ron Baalke         | baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov
    | | | |  __ \ /| | | |     Jet Propulsion Lab |
 ___| | | | |__) |/  | | |__   M/S 525-3684 Telos | Learn to recognize the
/___| | | |  ___/    | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | inconsequential, then 
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