NASA SCIENCE MISSION DIRECTORATE
COMPUTATIONAL MODELING CAPABILITIES WORKSHOP

FULL ANNOUNCEMENT

NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD)
Computational Modeling Capabilities Workshop

July 29–30, 2008
The Inn & Conference Center
University of Maryland University College
College Park, MD

*Important Notice: We are not accepting any additional requests for invitations. Confirmations were sent on Wednesday, July 9, 2008.*

Overview
NASA's Science Mission Directorate (SMD) is initiating a process to determine the computational modeling capabilities and infrastructure investments required to enable the goals defined in the Science Plan For NASA's Science Mission Directorate 2007–2016. SMD is seeking community input as it identifies the capabilities and investments that will be necessary to enable simulation, modeling, and analysis for supporting the Science Objectives and Outcomes presented in the Science Plan.

This workshop invites the participation of NASA SMD scientists, engineers, and technologists who use High-End Computing (HEC) technologies to address research and analysis problems in Earth Science, Heliophysics, Planetary Science, and Astrophysics, or who use HEC for SMD mission design and engineering. Your contribution will greatly assist the guidance and subsequent advocacy for the computational areas essential to the achievement of SMD's science goals. These areas include hardware, software, and human capital needs.

Requesting an Invitation
The workshop is open to the NASA SMD community, but attendance is limited by the capacity of the workshop location and requires an invitation. The "Request an Invitation" opportunity closed on Wednesday, July 2, and we are not accepting any additional requests for invitations. Confirmations were sent on Wednesday, July 9, 2008.

Invited participants are requested to document application scenarios by completing and submitting the "Pre-Workshop Survey."

Purpose and Agenda
The purpose of this community workshop is to identify SMD science and engineering computing needs and evaluate them against current capabilities. Identifying and quantifying these requirements is a key step in prioritizing HEC investments in this decade and the next.

In the context of this workshop, computational capabilities and infrastructure span the hardware, software, and human capital needed to enable the effective use of remotely sensed data in complex SMD simulations and models, as well as in the engineering analysis and design of future missions. Thrusts of this effort will enable interdisciplinary science, engineering, and applications scenarios employing linked or nested modeling components.

Workshop participants will be organized into five breakout sessions: Earth System Modeling, Solid Earth and Natural Hazards, Astrophysics, Heliophysics, and Planetary Science & Mission Engineering. Each breakout session will be tasked to:

• Identify the SMD computing capabilities required to achieve the discipline objectives and outcomes in the Science Plan.
• Evaluate current SMD computing capabilities against these requirements.
• Determine and quantify what gaps in capabilities exist.
• Determine which gaps should be addressed by HEC capability and infrastructure (including software tools) investments.

Each breakout session will be led by invited panelists who are experts in the session focus. Breakout sessions will develop requirements and identify gaps and potential areas for investment. A plenary session on the second day will summarize the results of these discussions. At this point, non-panelists will be excused. Invited panelists will then meet in closed sessions to develop their reports and synthesize a cross-cut of requirements across the panel disciplines.

A detailed Agenda with each day's schedule is available.