NASA Ames

Ames Research Center

Aerial view of Moffett Field and Ames Research Center
Agency overview
Formed	December 20, 1939
Jurisdiction	U.S. federal government
Headquarters	Mountain View, California, U.S.
Agency executive	Eugene Tu, director
Parent agency	NASA
Website	www.nasa.gov/ames
Map
Map of NASA Ames Research Center

Ames Research Center (ARC), commonly known as NASA Ames, is a major NASA research center at Moffett Federal Airfield in California's Silicon Valley. It was founded as the second National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) laboratory. That agency was dissolved and its assets and personnel transferred to the newly created National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on October 1, 1958. NASA Ames is named in honor of Joseph Sweetman Ames, a physicist and one of the founding members of NACA. At last estimate NASA Ames has over US$3.0 billion in capital equipment, 2,300 research personnel and a US$860 million annual budget.

Ames was founded to conduct wind-tunnel research on the aerodynamics of propeller-driven aircraft; however, its role has expanded to encompass spaceflight and information technology. Ames plays a role in many NASA missions. It provides leadership in astrobiology; small satellites; robotic lunar exploration; the search for habitable planets; supercomputing; intelligent/adaptive systems; advanced thermal protection; and airborne astronomy. Ames also develops tools for a safer, more efficient national airspace. The center's current director is Eugene Tu.

The site is mission center for several key current missions (Kepler, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission, Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph) and a major contributor to the "new exploration focus" as a participant in the Orion crew exploration vehicle.

Although Ames is a NASA Research Center, and not a flight center, it has nevertheless been closely involved in a number of astronomy and space missions.

The Pioneer program's eight successful space missions from 1965 to 1978 were managed by Charles Hall at Ames, initially aimed at the inner solar system. By 1972, it supported the bold flyby missions to Jupiter and Saturn with Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11. Those two missions were trail blazers (radiation environment, new moons, gravity-assist flybys) for the planners of the more complex Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 missions, launched five years later. In 1978, the end of the program brought about a return to the inner solar system, with the Pioneer Venus Orbiter and Multiprobe, this time using orbital insertion rather than flyby missions.