NASA's software of the year award goes to...

In a more nerdy bit of news, NASA has named Future Air traffic management Concepts Evaluation Tool (FACET) the software of the year. The program helps plan aircraft trajectories and manage air traffic across the US. NASA started the "software of the year" award in 1994, and aims to honor excellent software created for the agency, such as FACET. The FACET program has been licensed to Flight Explorer (a commercial aviation company), and facets of FACET have been incorporated into tools used by 500 flow managers across the country. The selection criteria for the award includes:

• Science and technology significance of the software and its impact on NASA's mission
• The extent of potential use
• The usability of the software
• The quality factors considered in the software
• Intellectual property factors, such as patents and copyrights
• Innovation of the software
  (excerpted from NASA's official news release on the award)
  

Congratulations to the Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California for winning the award.

Tags: commercial, FACET, NASA, news, softwareoftheyear