Corporate Membership

NASA Ames Research Center

Overview


NASA Ames Research Center, one of ten NASA field enters, is located in the heart of California’s Silicon Valley. For more than 75 years, Ames has led NASA in conducting world-class research and development in aeronautics, exploration technology and science aligned with the center’s core capabilities.

Location: California’s Silicon Valley, 40 miles south of San Francisco; 12 miles north of San Jose, between Mountain View and Sunnyvale

Established: December 20, 1939, as part of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), in 1958 absorbed into the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
 

Ames’ Key Goals

  • Maintain expertise in information technology, aerospace and aeronautics research and engineering.
  • Conduct research in space, Earth, lunar and biological sciences.
  • Develop lead status for NASA in small spacecraft missions.
  • Expand public and private partnerships.
  • Contribute innovative, high performance and reliable exploration technologies.
 


Core Areas of Expertise

  • Entry systems: Safely delivering spacecraft to Earth & other celestial bodies
  • Advanced Computing & IT Systems: Enabling NASA’s advanced modeling and simulation
  • Supercomputing
  • Aerosciences: Testing on the ground before you take to the sky
  • Wind Tunnels
  • Air Traffic Management: Transforming the way we fly
  • NextGen Air Transportation
  • Astrobiology and Life Science: Understanding life on Earth – and in space

  • Biology & Astrobiology
  • Cost-Effective Space Missions: Enabling high value science to low Earth orbit & the moon
  • Intelligent/Adaptive Systems: Complementing humans in space
  • Autonomy & Robotics
  • Human Systems Integration
  • Space and Earth Science: Understanding our planet, our solar system and everything beyond
  • Exoplanets
  • Airborne Science

Missions


To see a list of Ames missions, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/missions/index.html


Ames Involvement in Agency Initiatives

  • International Space Station
  • NASA’s Missions
  • Aeronautics
  • Human Exploration
  • Science
  • Commercial Space
  • Technology
  • Education