NASA Logo

NTRS

NTRS - NASA Technical Reports Server

Collections About News Help Login
Back to Results
Image Processor Electronics (IPE): The High-Performance Computing System for NASA SWIFT MissionGamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) are believed to be the most powerful explosions that have occurred in the Universe since the Big Bang and are a mystery to the scientific community. Swift, a NASA mission that includes international participation, was designed and built in preparation for a 2003 launch to help to determine the origin of Gamma Ray Bursts. Locating the position in the sky where a burst originates requires intensive computing, because the duration of a GRB can range between a few milliseconds up to approximately a minute. The instrument data system must constantly accept multiple images representing large regions of the sky that are generated by sixteen gamma ray detectors operating in parallel. It then must process the received images very quickly in order to determine the existence of possible gamma ray bursts and their locations. The high-performance instrument data computing system that accomplishes this is called the Image Processor Electronics (IPE). The IPE was designed, built and tested by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in order to meet these challenging requirements. The IPE is a small size, low power and high performing computing system for space applications. This paper addresses the system implementation and the system hardware architecture of the IPE. The paper concludes with the IPE system performance that was measured during end-to-end system testing.
Document ID
20030053388
Acquisition Source
Goddard Space Flight Center
Document Type
Preprint (Draft being sent to journal)
Authors
Nguyen, Quang H. (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Settles, Beverly A. (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Date Acquired
September 7, 2013
Publication Date
April 22, 2003
Subject Category
Computer Systems
Meeting Information
Meeting: International Conference on Communications in Computing
Location: Las Vegas, NV
Country: United States
Start Date: June 23, 2003
End Date: June 26, 2003
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Work of the US Gov. Public Use Permitted.

Related Records

There are no records associated with this record.
No Preview Available