Hello Community,
First off, thanks for your continued patience. We've been overwhelmed by the excitement for the challenge following press coverage and the exceptional community that's come together as a result. This challenge has really taken on a life of its own!
All that being said, we're very aware many of you are eagerly awaiting access to FUN3D software, and still wondering about the status of your application. We wanted to share with you that while it is an important protection, export controlled software is difficult to access, especially when a large number of people are interested in getting access simultaneously (as is the situation with this competition.)
In regard to this situation, it's important to be aware that NASA is committed to making sure the playing field is level and fair for all. And great news, NASA is hard at work creating a custom software package for release through their software release catalog, so you can begin working on your solution that much faster!
The public release of this software is anticipated for the end of June. As you might expect, we're extending the submission deadline by roughly 3 months to allow all competitors ample time to formulate their submissions.
You can expect additional follow-up announcements over the coming weeks with updated instructions and timelines for this new plan.
Thanks so much for sticking with it! We truly couldn't do this without the community commitment and understanding. Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns, and feel free to leave them as a comment to this update.
That is correct. For the purposes of this competition the software will be available for download separately from the application process.
There will be documentation released alongside the software. This will both describe the software package as well as identify bottlenecks. Hopefully this will be of great value when getting started!
I understand we are being asked solely to modify that portion of FUN3D software that is used for solving nonlinear partial differential equations written in FORTRAN. I understand our challenge is to speed up the mathematical calculations, and no other functions of the program (like IO).
Can you give us an idea of how much code there is in FUN3D that is subject to being modified in this Challenge? 5000 LinesOfCode, 10000, 25000, 50000...? How many different modules (sub-routines, sub-programs, procedures, etc) are involved? In other words, how much code do we need to look at and hopefully improve within the given 3 months?
What compiler optimizations, directives, and options are allowed? What will and will not work the same on my platform as on the Pleiades supercomputer? Is there any plan to address these types of questions?
In addition to the software itself, there will be documentation available describing both the software package and identified bottlenecks.
Either way, thank you so much, that really takes a lot of the pressure off.