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| High-End Computing Capability (NASA) | |
|---|---|
| Name | High-End Computing Capability |
| Agency | National Aeronautics and Space Administration |
| Established | 1990s |
| Location | Ames Research Center, Ames; NASA Ames |
| Type | Supercomputing program |
High-End Computing Capability (NASA) High-End Computing Capability is NASA's concentrated program for providing advanced supercomputer resources to support missions and research across Ames Research Center, Langley Research Center, Glenn Research Center, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Goddard Space Flight Center. It coordinates procurement, operation, and strategic planning with partners such as Department of Energy, National Science Foundation, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories to enable computational tasks for programs including Artemis program, Earth Observing System, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, James Webb Space Telescope, and International Space Station experiments.
High-End Computing Capability provides centralized supercomputer infrastructure, policy, and user support for NASA's mission directorates including Science Mission Directorate, Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, and Space Technology Mission Directorate. The capability integrates procurement strategies with Federal Acquisition Regulation, partnerships like the High Performance Computing and Communications Program, and collaboration with laboratories such as NASA Ames Research Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It supports workflows involving software from projects such as OpenMPI, PETSc, HPC Challenge, CFD packages used in Langley Research Center and Glenn Research Center analyses for platforms like Space Shuttle legacy studies and Orion (spacecraft) development.
The program evolved from early NASA computing efforts at Ames Research Center and Goddard Space Flight Center during the Space Shuttle era and expanded through collaborations with Department of Energy national labs, the National Science Foundation, and procurement competitions involving vendors like IBM, Cray Research, Hewlett-Packard, Intel Corporation, and NVIDIA. Key milestones include acquisition cycles tied to initiatives such as Advanced Supercomputing and deployments of systems comparable to installations at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Development was influenced by projects like Computational Fluid Dynamics programs at Langley Research Center, climate modeling linked to Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and mission modeling for Jet Propulsion Laboratory planetary missions.
Systems under the capability combine multi-core processors from Intel Corporation, many-core accelerators from NVIDIA, interconnects from Mellanox Technologies, and storage arrays based on technologies from NetApp and EMC Corporation. Architectures are selected to meet demands of applications used by teams at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Goddard Space Flight Center, and Ames Research Center including codes optimized with compilers from GNU Project and Intel compilers, and runtime libraries like OpenMPI and OpenMP. System deployments follow procurement standards influenced by Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program and interoperate with on-premise resources and cloud services from providers such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform when contracts permit.
High-End Computing Capability accelerates computational science for projects including climate simulation at Goddard Institute for Space Studies, turbulence and aerodynamics studies at Langley Research Center, combustion modeling relevant to Glenn Research Center, planetary entry, descent, and landing simulations at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and instrument simulation for James Webb Space Telescope teams at Goddard Space Flight Center. Research areas touched include computational fluid dynamics validated against experiments at Langley Research Center wind tunnels, global circulation modeling tied to the Earth Observing System, and spacecraft systems analysis supporting Artemis program mission planning. Outputs have contributed to publications in venues associated with American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, American Geophysical Union, and collaborations with European Space Agency partners.
Operational management is coordinated by component facilities such as NASA Ames Research Center and supported by program offices in NASA Headquarters with user allocation governed by peer review panels comprising researchers from Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Goddard Space Flight Center, Langley Research Center, NIH-affiliated scientists on interdisciplinary teams, and collaborators from Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Access mechanisms include merit-based allocations, interagency agreements with Department of Energy, and collaborations via cooperative research and development agreements with industry partners like IBM and NVIDIA. User environments provide typical tools used by researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, California Institute of Technology, and University of California, Berkeley.
Systems are evaluated using benchmark suites such as LINPACK, HPC Challenge, SPEC, and community codes tied to NASA missions. Performance targets are contextualized against national systems at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, with peak and sustained performance measured in petaflops and reported through internal metrics aligned with the TOP500 ranking practices. Benchmarking informs procurement decisions similar to those seen in acquisitions by Department of Energy and standards referenced by National Research Council studies.
Security and data governance follow frameworks including Federal Information Security Management Act, NIST Special Publication 800-53, and Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program guidance, coordinated by NASA Office of the Chief Information Officer and NASA Office of Protective Services where relevant. Data lifecycle management integrates archival relationships with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration archives, mission archives at Goddard Space Flight Center, and partnerships with National Archives and Records Administration for long-term stewardship. Controlled access to sensitive mission datasets is enforced through account management, multi-factor authentication standards used across NASA Headquarters and encryption protocols consistent with NIST recommendations.