Drucella Andersen
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                                         
September 1, 1992
(Phone:  202/453-8613)

Del Harding
Ames Research Center, Mountain View, Calif.
(Phone:  415/604-9000)


RELEASE:  92-139

NASA SELECTS CRAY RESEARCH FOR SUPERCOMPUTER CONTRACT

   NASA has selected Cray Research, Inc., Eagan, Minn., for 
negotiations leading to award of a contract to provide a new 
supercomputer to NASA's Ames Research Center, Mountain View, 
Calif.  Estimated value of the contract is $74.3 million.

   "Cray is an acknowledged pioneer in the supercomputer field," 
said Kristin Hessenius, Director of Aeronautical Research at 
NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.  "They were chosen because 
of the clearly superior capabilities of the Y-MP C-90 and Cray's 
history of providing NASA with reliable, cost-effective 
facilities over the years."

   The Y-MP C-90 will support Ames' Numerical Aerodynamic 
Simulation (NAS) Processing System Network.  NAS serves hundreds 
of federal, private industry and university scientists 
throughout the United States.  NAS is widely considered a 
pathfinder in advanced computational systems.  

   "This purchase will allow Ames to continue providing 
leading-edge computational services to the aerospace community," 
Dr. F. Ron Bailey, Director of Ames' Aerophysics Office said.  
"The Y-MP C-90 will be able to perform in excess of 6 billion 
computations per second, making it one of the fastest computers 
in the world."  

   Cray will deliver the Y-MP C-90/16512 supercomputer to Ames 
next year.  Under the contract, the company also will perform 
maintenance and other support services for the new 
supercomputer.  The Y-MP C-90 will replace Ames' Cray 2 
supercomputer acquired in 1985. 

                             -end-