This award is made under the high performance connections portion of NCRI's "Connections to the Internet" announcement, NSF 96-64. It provides partial support for two years to create a gigapop centered around the University of Maryland-College Park (UM-CP) and the University of Maryland-Baltimore County (UMBC). The two campuses are connected by an OC-48 line, which also connects to the vBNS at OC-3. Other research institutions in the Baltimore area connect through UMBC, while Washington area research institutions connect through UM-CP. Applications include projects in remote sensing data collection and distribution, atmospheric science, the Earth Observing System program, interactive visualization, and large-scale intelligent document retrieval. Collaborating institutions include most of the Internet 2 institutions and several NASA facilities.
