The heart of NASA’s supercomputer center

CNET News : If you’re a materials scientist at NASA’s Glenn Research Center, or an engineer at the Johnson or Marshall Space Centers studying Space Shuttle flow-control valves, or any one of countless others in the agency needing a supercomputer, there’s really just one place to go—the advanced supercomputing facility at the Ames Research Center.At the center is the sixth-most-powerful supercomputer on Earth, Pleiades , with a current rating of 973 teraflops.The facility services about 1500 users across NASA, according to Rupak Biswas, the agency’s advanced supercomputing division chief.Pleiades, like most, if not all, supercomputers, is a work in progress. Debuted in late 2008 with a world number 3 ranking and a measurement of 487 teraflops, the machine has now doubled its capacity, even as it has dropped three places in the rankings. Based on SGI’s Altix ICE system, the system will continue to grow in the foreseeable future.