SGI Technology Powers NASA Michoud Preparations for Shuttle Return to Flight

With NASA now projecting a mid-July Space Shuttle return to flight, Lockheed Martin Space Systems-Michoud Operations continues their impact analysis of the external fuel tank using the SGI® Altix® computing system and SGI® InfiniteStorage purchased from Silicon Graphics in June 2004. Michoud, which designs and assembles the Space Shuttle external fuel tank for NASA, made the purchase to complete impact analysis simulations of foam, ice, and other debris and to model/analyze the design of the Shuttle’s external tank. Michoud chose SGI® high-performance compute technology because SGI benchmark tests demonstrated to Michoud engineers that they could run the three-million-plus calculations required in time to deliver their findings by NASA deadlines.