NASA's Office of Earth Science Awards 21 Contracts for Advanced Information Systems Technology

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has awarded funding for 21 new investigations for information systems technology development, under the Advanced Information Systems Technology (AIST) Program, which supports NASA's mission to understand and protect our home planet. The proposals, selected from a field of 200 submitted proposals, focus on high-priority information technology areas: on-board processing, space-based communications networks, mission automation, and high-end computing technologies for modeling. The total funding for these investigations, over a period of three years, is approximately $23 million; investigators hail from 14 states and the District of Columbia.

The main purpose of AIST is to invest in research and development of new and innovative information technologies to support and enhance the Earth Science Enterprise (ESE) science and applications objectives in the 21^st century. AIST focuses on creating mature technologies leading to smaller, less resource-intensive and less expensive flight systems that can be built quickly and efficiently, and on more-efficient ground-based processing and modeling systems that improve the use of Earth science data.

The technologies selected include the implementation of science algorithms in hardware for onboard processing, as well as for the direct distribution of change detection data products from space. Reconfigurable on-board processors will also be matured to support onboard data compression, short-range weather forecasting and cloud detection, and sensor webs and formation flying.

Also selected were space-based network technologies to facilitate seamless connection from instruments or sensors on-board the spacecraft to the user community using existing commercial Ethernet standards. An innovative technique for increasing current printed circuit board memory capacity by an order of magnitude will enable advanced data processing and the use of new high-resolution sensors.

Communication and mission automation technologies to enable the implementation of cooperative observations using constellations and sensor webs will also be developed. These include novel approaches to network protocols and architectures, automated scheduling, and mission automation using Earth phenomena observing systems.

Analysis of Solid Earth, Carbon and Weather data obtained from Earth Observing satellites will be enhanced through the maturation and integration of various high-performance computer modeling techniques. These models will be complemented by the development of an intelligent data analysis system that automates some ground system data processing functions.

The investigations selected by NASA's Office of Earth Science are:

Atiquzzaman, Mohammed (University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK): Seamless Handover in Space Networks

Bergamo, Marcos (BBN Technologies, Cambridge, MA): Multi-Satellite Virtual Private Network for Space-Based Applications (SpaceVPN)

Byler, Eric (Lockheed Martin Aerospace Corporation, Palo Alto, CA): Realtime-Reconfigurable Distributed-Computing for Adaptive Science Operations in Satellite Formations using Heterogeneous CPUs and Heterogeneous Connectivity

Di, Liping (George Mason University, Fairfax, VA): Integration of OGC and Grid Technologies for Earth Science Modeling and Applications

Donnellan, Andrea (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, CA): Complexity Computational Environments: Data Assimilation SERVO Grid

Durden, Stephen (NASA JPL, Pasadena, CA): An On-Board Processor for a Spaceborne Doppler Precipitation Radar

Gray, Andrew (NASA JPL, Pasadena, CA): Reconfigurable Protocol Chip for Satellite Networks

Herath, Jeffery (NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC), Hampton, VA): Radiation Tolerant Intelligent Memory Stack (RTIMS)

Joseph, James (Spectrum Astro, Gilbert, AZ): TCP/IP Router Board (TRB) with Ethernet Interfaces

Kolitz, Stephan (Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Cambridge, MA): Mission Automation for "A Train" Correlative Measurements Using the Earth Phenomena Observing Systems

LeMoigne, Jacqueline (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, MD): A Reconfigurable Computing Environment for On-Board Data Compression and Cloud Reduction

Lin, Mike (NASA GSFC, Greenbelt, MD): 10/100 Mb/sec Flight Ready Ethernet Hardware

Lou, Yunling (NASA JPL, Pasadena, CA): On-Board Processor for Direct Distribution of Change Detection Data Products

Mandl, Daniel (NASA GSFC, Greenbelt, MD): Hybrid Ground Phased Array Prototype for Low Earth Orbiting Satellite Communications

Morris, Robert (NASA ARC, Moffett Field, CA): Planning and Scheduling of Coordinated Science Observations

Nance, Kara (University of Alaska, Fairbanks, AK): Intelligent Dataset Identification, Assimilation, Collection and Transformation System

Peters-Lidard, Christa (NASAGSFC, Greenbelt, MD): Coupling High Resolution Earth System Models Using Advanced Computational Technologies

Rew, Russell (UCAR/NCAR, Boulder, CO): Merging the NetCDF and HDF5 Libraries to Achieve Gains in Performance and Interoperability

Schott, Brian (University of Southern California, Arlington, VA): Reconfigurable Hardware in Orbit

Thornton, Peter (National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder, CO): Implementing an Efficient Supercomputer-Based Grid Compute Engine for End-to-end Operation of a High-Resolution, High Data-Volume Terrestrial Carbon Cycle Model

Weigand, Daniel (ITT, Reston, VA): RF Agile Low-Power Transceiver (LPT) Technology for future Space-Based Communications Networks