A global leader in automation and management software for edge-to-core-to-cloud high-performance computing, Bright Computing recently announced that the Jet Propulsion Laboratory or JPL of NASA chose Bright Cluster Manager to manage the newest clustered environment of its research and development lab.
As indicated in a CISION PRWeb report, the environment was organized in late 2019 and became completely operational in January last year. JPL utilized these new capabilities to carry out crucial trajectory computations and entry descent landing calculations for the recent Mars 2020 Perseverance Mission.
The Mars Exploration Program, a long-term initiative of robotic exploration of Mars, aims to meet high-priority science goals while answering key questions in astrobiology about potential life on the Red Planet.
Essentially, Bright Cluster Manager is a comprehensive management of the whole clustered environment, enabling JPL to regulate its High Performance Computing (HPC) resources, as described in the PHCwire site, as a single unit, even as resources are spanning two separate sites.
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In this concept illustration provided by NASA, NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter stands on the Red Planet's surface as NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover rolls away.
The 'Bright Cluster' Manager
With the Bright Cluster Manager, JPL is leveraging a flexible platform that allows users to set out complete clusters over bare metal and reliably manage them from "edge-to-core-to-cloud," according to the report.
In addition, Bright Cluster Manager provides NASA's JPL with a flexible cluster management platform that allows the JPL to seamlessly leverage the latest in HPC technology, decrease demand on available personnel resources, augment workload efficiency, and manage the diversity of resources across all domains of both engineering and science users.
Located in Pasadena, California, JPL is a federal research and development center that performs robotics for space and Earth science missions for NASA.
Responding to a need for expanded HPC capabilities, JPL decommissioned its present environment, which comprised three separate clusters of varying ages, and constructed a state-of-the-art clustered environment along with a Pasadena-based infrastructure, and a Las Vegas-based satellite location.
Utilizing Clustered Environment
JPL is utilizing the clustered environment for a variety of workloads, which include basic science, Biology research related to COVID-19, and high-end engineering research.
During the Mars 2020 Perseverance Mission, JPL leveraged the new environment to generate trajectory correction computations and entry, descent and the landing computations for the spacecraft that carries the Mars rover, Perseverance, and the tiny robotic helicopter, Ingenuity.
In this particular case, NASA's JPL leveraged Bright Edge for the processing of flight trajectory and landing computations at each site.
Spacecraft telemetry data was plugged into the models and used to observe and follow where the spacecraft was in reference to their trajectory path model.
The data was utilized to determine the route correction maneuvers, or course alterations, so that the spacecraft would keep an ideal flight trail on its way to the Red Planet.
During the months-long flight, the environment of JPL was accountable for backing trajectory correction, as well as entry descent and landing computations that proved crucial to the success of the mission.
Bright Cluster Manager's Flexibility and Ease
With Bright Cluster Manager's flexibility and ease, JPL is able to access a cluster management platform that would allow them to manage the environment's growth along with its current personnel.
This innate flexibility interconnects well with the roadmap of JPL, one that comprises frequent hardware upgrades over the next 10 years.
The vendor-agnostic platform of Bright Cluster Manager will keep up with new hardware, back continued growth, and easily handle a continuous operation of the most recent HPC services in present and future iterations of the environment.
Moving forward, JPL will engage in almost 30 missions over the next 10 years that will all be supported by its present environment.
In opting for the new system's components, JPL knew it needed to be forward-thinking when it comes to the software service that would back new iterations for its environment.
Bright Computing will support JPL in that particular growth and expansion, removing the complexity they experienced using the old systems, and allowing flexibility as they pave the way for future studies.
Related information is shown on iGadgetPro's YouTube video below:
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Check out more news and information on Mars in Science Times.
