The CESDIS mission is to increase the connection between computer science and engineering research programs at colleges and universities and NASA groups working with computer applications in Earth and space sciences. CESDIS also focuses attention on the computer science issues involved in accessing, processing, and analyzing data from space observing systems; and collaborates with NASA space and Earth scientists in research related to NASA's needs.
CESDIS funds multiyear research projects at universities and colleges in the United States with Ph.D degree granting departments in computer science, computer engineering, or electrical engineering. Research proposals are accepted in response to calls for proposals and are selected for funding on the basis of peer reviews. Funds are provided to support junior faculty and graduate students working at their home institutions under the guidance of senior principal investigators. Project personnel visit Goddard during academic recess periods to attend workshops, present seminars, and collaborate with NASA scientists on research projects. Additionally, CESDIS takes on specific research tasks of shorter duration for computer science requested by NASA Goddard scientists.
Projects funded to date have included the development of advanced algorithms and related prototype programs for data compression, a software visualization tool for scientist interaction with data, a software solution to finding the inner ring on auroral images, and software to aid in pattern recognition and visualization of scientific data. Additional research tasks have been undertaken through CESDIS as the result of specific requests from NASA. To date, CESDIS has funded research at a total of 18 universities and four corporations. Papers describing research progress and results are disseminated through the CESDIS Technical Report Series; for more information send email to cas@cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov. Ongoing research includes studies in communication protocols, mass storage systems, database management, transaction processing, and operating systems.
CESDIS also provides expertise in the area of Information Engineering and works with the NASA Headquarters Office of High Performance Computing and Communications. CESDIS works and interacts across the High Performance Computing (HPC) community and NASA Research Centers studying, researching, and processing HPC information and issues as NASA implements its portion of the High Performance Computing and Communications (HPCC) Program.
