NEWS BRIEFS

Mountain View, CALIF. — SGI announced that Aerojet has awarded SGI a contract to provide its breakthrough SGI NUMAflex modular technology to power mobile satellite stations for the U.S. Air Force’s Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS), the U.S.’s next-generation ballistic missile early warning system.

Under the contract, SGI will provide 18 SGI Origin 3000 series servers and 27 SGI Onyx 3000 series visualization systems that will be collocated in the mobile satellite ground stations. The SGI Origin 3000 series servers will be used as the front-end of the mission for the ground stations from SBIRS satellites high above the earth. The SGI Onyx 3000 series systems will graphically display the data for U.S. military operators.

The mobile ground station phase of the SBIRS program complements the fixed ground station sites that are already in place around the world. These fixed satellite ground stations are currently powered by more than 50 SGI Origin 2000 servers and more than 250 Silicon Graphics Onyx2 systems. To date, SGI has provided in excess of $120 million worth of hardware, software and services to SBIRS and its related programs.

SBIRS is designed to replace the Defense Support Program (DSP), a nearly 30-year-old satellite constellation, as the primary initial warning system for ballistic missile attacks on the United States, its deployed forces and its allies. This premier system will provide national and theater commanders with real-time missile warning data used to detect and track missile launches and cue missile defense systems to target hostile threats.

“We are proud of the continued responsibility that Aerojet and the U.S. Air Force have given SGI with regard to the SBIRS program, which addresses the nation’s critical needs in the areas of missile warning and missile defense,” said Anthony Robbins, president, SGI Federal. “With the latest addition of the 18 SGI Origin 3000 series servers and 27 SGI Onyx 3000 series systems, SGI will continue its dominance in this cutting-edge area of military information technology.”

In November 1996, the U.S. Air Force selected Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) to lead a team of contractors, including Aerojet, to develop SBIRS. For the ground segment of the SBIRS program, Aerojet is working with Lockheed Martin to provide ground systems for satellite control, mission data processing, telemetry and tracking and operations.

Each of the mobile satellite ground stations will include two next-generation SGI Origin 3000 series servers (one for redundancy) and three ruggedized SGI Onyx 3000 series visualization systems. Computer Ruggedization Integration (CRI) will ruggedize the SGI Onyx 3000 series systems for use in the mobile ground stations. The SGI Origin 3000 servers do not need to be ruggedized. Each mobile ground station will be transportable by a military transport aircraft. This will enable the systems to be delivered anywhere in the world at a moment’s notice.

In July, SGI announced the launch of its SGI Origin 3000 series servers and SGI Onyx 3000 series visualization systems. Based on patented SGI NUMAflex modular technology, the systems offer flexibility, resiliency, overall investment protection and superior performance.

SGI NUMAflex modular technology is a brick-style system for constructing small to very large systems from a common set of building blocks. SGI NUMAflex allows users to build the optimum configuration one component at a time and adopt new technologies that map to their specific business or research needs.

SGI Origin 3000 and SGI Onyx 3000 series systems utilize the SGI IRIX operating system, the world’s premier 64-bit UNIX operating system for high-performance computing, advanced visualization and production supercomputing. The SGI IRIX operating system is renowned for its leadership in scalable computation; high-performance data movement, sharing and management; real-time applications support; and media streaming capabilities. Technical applications that currently run on the SGI 2000 series and Silicon Graphics Onyx2 systems will run on the SGI 3000 family systems.

Aerojet, a GenCorp company, is a world-recognized aerospace and defense leader principally serving the space electronics, missile and space propulsion and smart munitions and armaments markets. CRI, a division of RSI, Inc., is an authorized systems integrator for SGI specializing in repackaged and ruggedized commercial off-the-shelf computer systems for use in military environments.

SGI provides a broad range of high-performance computing and advanced graphics solutions that enable customers to understand and conquer their toughest computing problems. Headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., with offices worldwide, the company is located on the Web at http://www.sgi.com .

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