Supercomputer in Space
Los Alamos scientists preparing a new generation
of computers for spacecraft.
Cibola
satelliteScientists at Los Alamos
National Laboratory said they are preparing to test a new computing technology
that could dramatically increase the capabilities of
spacecraft.The project - jointly
sponsored by the Department of Defense and the National Nuclear Security
Administration’s Office of Nonproliferation Research and Development -
involves orbiting an experimental payload this fall that is capable of
performing more than 1 trillion operations per
second.That much capability would
match the power of the best supercomputers from a decade ago - except those
machines occupied as much as 50,000 cubic feet and required up to 50,000 watts
of electrical power. The new technology - driven by a 90-nanometer Virtex-4
microprocessor developed by Xilinx Inc. of San Jose, Calif. - weighs only 40
pounds and requires only 80 watts of
power.The test will be conducted
aboard the Cibola Flight Experiment, due to be launched aboard a U.S. Air Force
Atlas-V rocket in September from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station,
Fla….The experiment will use a network of reprogrammable and field
programmable gate arrays to process the received signals for ionospheric and
lightning studies. The objective is to detect and measure impulsive events that
occur in a complex background and would overload existing space-based computer
systems.The research partners said the
technology also is aimed at boosting the power of Software-Defined Radio
functions, a critical element of the military’s tactical communications,
and the system could be of great value to commercial television and radio
broadcasting.Overdue.
Posted: Mon - May 1, 2006 at 06:05 AM