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. 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. By 1972, it supported the bold flyby missions to Jupiter and Saturn with Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11. 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. Missions Īlthough 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 site was mission center for several key missions ( Kepler, the 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. The center's current director is Eugene Tu. Ames also develops tools for a safer, more efficient national airspace. It provides leadership in astrobiology small satellites robotic lunar exploration the search for habitable planets supercomputing intelligent/adaptive systems advanced thermal protection planetary science and airborne astronomy. At last estimate NASA Ames had over US$3 billion in capital equipment, 2,300 research personnel and a US$860 million annual budget.Īmes 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. NASA Ames is named in honor of Joseph Sweetman Ames, a physicist and one of the founding members of NACA. That agency was dissolved and its assets and personnel transferred to the newly created National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on October 1, 1958. It was founded in 1939 as the second National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) laboratory. The Ames Research Center ( ARC), also known as NASA Ames, is a major NASA research center at Moffett Federal Airfield in California's Silicon Valley.
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