ECONOMICS

RackSaver Inc. celebrates the successful landing and work of the Spirit and Opportunity rovers on Mars. The THEMIS (Thermal Emission Imaging System) data from the Mars Space Flight Facility at Arizona State University was calculated using RackSaver BladeRack servers, and then was used to help choose the landing sites for Spirit and Opportunity. The Mars Space Flight Facility at Arizona State University uses RackSaver's BladeRack system, a 50-node, dual AMD processor-based system, running Red Hat Linux. Arizona State University chose the RackSaver BladeRack for its ability to provide the most processing power in a limited space, offering a high-density solution for the Mars Space Flight Facility's supercomputing needs. This information was used by JPL Scientists to examine potential landing sites for Spirit and Opportunity. The BladeRack system is used by Arizona State University researchers to translate the continuous flow of raw data that is gathered from the THEMIS instruments on NASA satellites orbiting Mars into clean images that are suitable for study. The BladeRack system is also being used to test new processing methods on thousands of archived image files to help confirm mineralogy and petrology of localized deposits associated with hydrothermal or sub-aqueous environments. "RackSaver is pleased that it could be an integral part of space exploration and the current Mars mission," said David Driggers, CEO, RackSaver Inc. "RackSaver works with leading university programs, like Arizona State University's Mars Space Flight Facility, to provide supercomputing resources to help further space exploration and educational goals. We take great pride in the fact that our BladeRack system is assisting these talented scientists in their work to discover this exciting new world of Mars." After the Spirit and Opportunity Mars Exploration Rovers end their tours, the Mars Space Facility at Arizona State will use the BladeRack cluster to process the data that has been gathered. "By using RackSaver's BladeRack, the ASU's Mars Space Facility has been able to process and calibrate the image data from the THEMIS instrument to assist NASA Scientists in finding optimal landing locations for the Mars Exploration Rovers," said Chris Kurtz, senior system administrator, Arizona State University. "THEMIS has been able to provide unprecedented spectrography of Mars, giving scientists an unprecedented look at the surface of Mars, and the BladeRack has given the Mars Space Facility the ability to stitch and smooth the images into a seamless vision of the surface."