[February 25, 2010] NASA 2009 software award is presented Tweet (UPI Science News Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) The U.S. space agency says it has awarded its 2009 Software of the Year award to engineers at the agency's Ames Research Center in California. The software engineering team developed the "NASA World Wind Java Software Development Kit and Web Mapping Services Server." The space agency described the program as "an open-source platform used to display NASA and U.S. Geological Survey data on virtual 3-D globes of Earth and other planets." Scientists said the displayed information comes from satellites, aerial photography, as well as topographic and geographic data. "The outstanding work of the NASA World Wind team has made a significant and lasting contribution to Ames' technology development portfolio and NASA's leadership in geospatial technology," said Ames Director Pete Worden. The winning team is led by Patrick Hogan and includes Pat Moran, Tom Gaskins, Paul Collins, Lado Garakanidze, Randolph Kim, Patrick Murris, Jay Parsons, Chris Maxwell and Rick Brownrigg. The runners up in the competition were the Spacecraft Planet Instrument C-Matrix Events Toolkit from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and the Copernicus Trajectory Design and Optimization System from NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. More information and download instructions for NASA World Wind are available at http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/java. Copyright 2010 United Press International, Inc. (UPI). Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]