NASA names supercomputer after Kalpana Chawla

NASA has dedicated its new Altix supercomputer 'KC' to the memory of India-born astronaut Kalpana Chawla, one of the seven crew members aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia which disintegrated midair in February last year.

Naming the new supercomputer 'Kalpana' follows a long tradition at NASA's Ames Research Centre of calling its new supercomputers after pioneers in the supercomputer industry or individuals who have significantly contributed to research at the aircraft research laboratory.

"It is indeed an honour to name NASA's new SGI Altix 3000 supercomputer after Kalpana Chawla," said Ames Centre Director G Scott Hubbard. "She was not only a member of the NASA family, but also a special member of our own Ames family. We all miss her and her many contributions to the agency." 

At Ames, Chawla had the challenging task of computing the airflow surrounding a jet-supported, delta-wing aircraft during landing. During an interview in 1995, Chawla predicted that her exposure to a wide variety of computer systems at Ames would be especially useful to her as an astronaut.

Of the dozens of experiments successfully conducted by the Columbia crew, Chawla's favourite was the Israeli Mediterranean Dust Experiment, which involved pointing a camera at Earth to study the effects of dust on weather and the environment.

"Fittingly, the SGI Altix 3000 supercomputer that will  be named 'Kalpana' is being used to develop substantially more capable simulation models to better assess the evolution and behavior of the Earth's climate system," said Ghassem Asrar, NASA's Deputy Associate Administrator for Earth Science.

The new supercomputer is being used for a group effort by NASA Headquarters, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, California, NASA Ames and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

It is being utilised to deliver high-resolution ocean analysis in the framework of the ECCO (Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean) Consortium, which involves JPL, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass, and the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, La Jolla, California.

Remembering Kalpana Chawla