Computing Platform Improves Stellar Imaging Applications

Star-P interactive parallel computing platform
Interactive Supercomputing (ISC)
Waltham, MA
781-419-5050
www.interactivesupercomputing.com

NASA’s Optical Systems Characterization and Analysis Research (OSCAR) is modeling software used to design and analyze large space-based imaging systems. Because systems of this type require large, high-fidelity optical modeling, NASA runs OSCAR on Beowulf parallel computing clusters to handle the large datasets and meet the memory requirements. To facilitate parallel computing, OSCAR is written entirely in C, with message passing interface (MPI) handling the computations across many processor nodes. OSCAR was instrumental in solving the optical flaws of the Hubble Space Telescope.

NASA recently contracted Interactive Supercomputing (ISC) to link OSCAR with ISC’s Star-P interactive supercomputing platform. The project aims to boost productivity among scientists working in NASA’s Stellar Vision Mission by enabling them to reuse existing serial and parallel OSCAR code without having to master OSCAR’s programming requirements.

“OSCAR is a powerful NASA resource that can now be extended with Star-P to a wider range of scientists whose work demands high-performance computing, but who are not parallel programming experts,” said NASA’s Anthony Gualtieri.

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