AEROSPACE

SGI Technology Improves Missile Defense Community's Response Capabilities -- Silicon Graphics announced that Madison Research Corporation has purchased an SGI Origin 3900 supercomputer with 64 processors and 64 GB of system memory for the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC) in Huntsville, Alabama. Financial and other terms were not disclosed. The SGI Origin 3900 system is scheduled to be installed in second-quarter 2004 at the SMDC Simulation Center in Huntsville, AL, where it will be used to support the SMDC global mission. Madison Research Corporation is the prime contractor that operates the SMDC Simulation Center. Funding for this project is through the U.S. Department of Defense's High Performance Computing Modernization Program. The advanced computational power of the Origin® system will enable engineers to develop and analyze massive amounts of computational physics and electronics data for realistic aircraft, missile, ship, spacecraft, and environment modeling and simulation. "We are pleased that SMDC, an SGI customer for over a decade, has selected SGI technology again for this mission critical project at the SimCenter," said Bob Bishop, chairman and CEO, SGI. "SGI builds real-time big-data machines to handle massive amounts of data generated by complex simulations and a landscape increasingly filled with digital sensors. Our high-performance systems, with their superb near real-time accuracy, support the fusion of disparate data sources, including high-frequency radar, video, and visual databases. SGI systems are uniquely suited to provide the critical compute and visualization capabilities for Missile Defense Agency programs to achieve faster decision times." SGI, also known as Silicon Graphics, Inc., is the world's leader in high-performance computing, visualization and storage. SGI's vision is to provide technology that enables the most significant scientific and creative breakthroughs of the 21st century. Whether it's sharing images to aid in brain surgery, finding oil more efficiently, studying global climate or enabling the transition from analog to digital broadcasting, SGI is dedicated to addressing the next class of challenges for scientific, engineering, and creative users. With offices worldwide, the company is headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., and can be found on the Web at www.sgi.com. MRC is a full-service engineering services and information technology company founded in 1986. Mr. John L. Stallworth, President and CEO, directs MRC's operations from the corporate headquarters in Huntsville, AL. Its staff of over 650 people is located in Huntsville, at six satellite offices throughout the South, and on-site at 29 Government facilities nation-wide. MRC applies its core competencies of systems acquisition, system sustainment, software engineering, and information systems to meet the diverse needs of a growing customer base of Government agencies (DoD, NASA, DOE, the States of Alabama and Tennessee, EPA, and the US Department of Health and Human Services) and leading commercial companies. For more information, visit the MRC web site at www.madisonresearch.com. SMDC, as the Army Service Component to U.S. Strategic Command, conducts space operations and provides planning, integration, control and coordination of Army forces and capabilities in support of USSTRATCOM missions; serves as proponent for space and ground-based midcourse defense and as Army operational integrator for global missile defense; conducts mission related research, development, and acquisition in support of Army Title 10 responsibilities and serves as the focal point for desired characteristics and capabilities in support of USSTRATCOM missions.