Land Information System Named 2005 NASA Software of the Year

The ESTO/CT-funded Land Information System (LIS) is co-winner of the 2005 NASA Software of the Year award. Co-Principal Investigators Paul Houser of George Mason University (formerly of GSFC) and Christa Peters-Lidard of GSFC received the award in a September 6 ceremony at NASA Headquarters. The award consists of a medal and $43,400. The other 2005 recipient is the Autonomous Sciencecraft Experiment software from NASA JPL.

LIS is a software suite capable of modeling the global land surface at 1-kilometer resolution faster than real time (see “Data Drives Land Surface Modeling,” ESDCD News, Summer 2004). It currently has more than 150 users from 30 countries, including science teams for NASA satellite missions and a variety of government agencies. LIS co-investigators sharing the award are James Geiger, Susan Olden, and Luther Lighty of GSFC and Sujay Kumar and Yudong Tian of the Goddard Earth Sciences and Technology Center of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

The NASA Inventions and Contributions Board, which administers the award, noted that LIS has “helped advance the Earth-Sun System Division’s software engineering principles and practices, while promoting portability, interoperability, and scalability.” The Software of the Year Review Panel comprises experts from each NASA Center. The Offices of the Chief Engineer, Safety and Mission Assurance, and Chief Information Officer co-sponsor the award.

http://icb.nasa.gov/nasaswy.html