NASA Ames Research Center

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Aerial View of Moffett Field and NASA Ames Research Center.

NASA Ames Research Center (ARC) is a NASA facility located at Moffett Federal Airfield, which spans the borders of the cities of Mountain View and Sunnyvale in California. This research center is most commonly called NASA Ames.

The Aeronautical Research Laboratory was 43 acres assigned by the Army to NACA December 6, 1939. It became Ames Aeronautical Laboratory 20 December, 1939.

ARC was founded on December 20, 1939 as the second laboratory of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), and moved to NASA in 1958. The Sunnyvale site at Moffett Field was selected in October 1939 by the Charles Lindbergh Committee established by an act of the U.S. Congress in August 1939. The Ames Aeronautical Laboratory (now the Ames Research Center) was named after Joseph Sweetman Ames, the president of Johns Hopkins University from 1929 to 1935, and longtime NACA chairman.

ARC is active in aeronautical research, life sciences, space science, and technology research, especially information technology, including machine learning and artificial intelligence. The Center houses the world's largest wind tunnel, part of the National Full-Scale Aerodynamic Complex (NFAC). Although decommissioned by NASA in 2003, the NFAC is now being operated by the U. S. Air Force as a satellite facility of the Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC).

The buildings at Moffett Field consist of those belonging to NASA proper, including the wind tunnels and other core research facilities, as well as an academic research park intended to foster collaborations with universities. Members of this Ames campus include Carnegie Mellon West, the University Affiliated Research Center (UARC) (administered by the University of California, Santa Cruz), the SJSU Metropolitan Technology Center (part of San Jose State University), and The Space Technology Center (STC) (managed by San Jose State University).Link

1 Information Technology
2 Image processing
3 Wind tunnels
4 Arc Jet Complex
5 Range Complex
6 Recent events
7 External links

[edit] Information Technology

Ames is the home of NASA's large research and development divisions in Advanced Supercomputing, Human Factors, and Intelligent Systems or Artificial Intelligence. These R&D organizations support NASA's Exploration efforts, as well as the continued operations of the Space Shuttle, and the space science and Aeronautics work across NASA.

[edit] Image processing

NASA Ames was one of the first locations in the world to conduct research on image processing of satellite-platform aerial photography. Some of the pioneering techniques of contrast enhancement using Fourier analysis were developed at Ames in conjunction with researchers at ESL Inc.

[edit] Wind tunnels

The NASA Ames wind tunnels are known not only for their immense size, but also for their diverse characteristics enabling various kinds of scientific and engineering research. In the last five decades large numbers of experiments have been conducted in the tunnels: not only on spacecraft and aircraft flight simulation, but also for advanced materials research on ablation phenomena. For example, in the 1960s significant early research was carried out in the hypersonic tunnel to develope new materials for re-entry Apollo vehicles.

[edit] Arc Jet Complex

The Ames Arc Jet Complex has seven available test bays. At the present time, four bays contain Arc Jet units of differing configurations, serviced by common facility support equipment. These are the Aerodynamic Heating Facility (AHF), the Turbulent Flow Duct (TFD), the Panel Test Facility (PTF), and the Interactive Heating Facility (IHF). The support equipment includes two D.C. power supplies, a steam ejector-driven vacuum system, a water-cooling system, high-pressure gas systems, data acquisition system, and other auxiliary systems.

The magnitude and capacity of these systems makes the Ames Arc Jet Complex unique in the world. The largest power supply can deliver 75 megawatts(MW) for a 30 minute duration or 150 MW for a 15 second duration. This power capacity, in combination with a high-volume 5-stage steam ejector vacuum-pumping system, enables facility operations to match high-altitude atmospheric flight conditions with samples of relatively large size. The Thermo-Physics Facilities Branch operates four arc jet facilities. The Interaction Heating Facility IHF), with an available power of over 60-MW, is one of the highest-power arc jets available. It is a very flexible facility, capable of long run times of up to one hour, and able to test large samples in both a stagnation and flat plate configuration. The Panel Test Facility (PTF) uses a unique semielliptic nozzle for testing panel sections. Powered by a 20-MW arc heater, the PTF can perform tests on samples for up to 20 minutes. The Turbulent Flow Duct provides supersonic, turbulent hightemperature air flows over flat surfaces. The TFD is powered by a 20-MW Hüls arc heater and can test samples 203mm by 508mm in size. The Aerodynamic Heating Facility (AHF) has similar characteristics to the IHF arc heater, offering a wide range of operating conditions, samples sizes and extended test times. A cold-air-mixing plenum allows for simulations of ascent or high-speed flight conditions. Catalycity studies using air or nitrogen can be performed in this flexible rig. A 5-arm model support system allows the user to maximize testing efficiency. The AHF can be configured with either a Hüls or segmented arc heater, up to 20-MW. 1 MW is enough energy to power 750 homes.

[edit] Range Complex

The Ames Vertical Gun Range (AVGR) was designed to conduct scientific studies of lunar impact processes in support of the Apollo missions. In 1979, it was established as a National Facility, funded through the Planetary Geology and Geophysics Program. In 1995, increased scientific needs across various disciplines resulted in joint core funding by three different science programs at NASA Headquarters (Planetary Geology and Geophysics, Exobiology, and Solar System Origins). In addition, the AVGR provides programmatic support for various proposed and ongoing planetary missions (e.g. Stardust, Deep Impact).

Using its 0.30 cal light-gas gun and powder gun, the AVGR can launch projectiles to velocities ranging from 0.5 to nearly 7 km/sec. By varying the gun’s angle of elevation with respect to the target vacuum chamber, impact angles from 0° to 90° relative to the gravitational vector are possible. This unique feature is extremely important in the study of crater formation processes.

Many projectile types including spheres, cylinders, irregular shapes, and clusters of small particles can be launched. They can be metallic (aluminum, copper, iron), mineral (quartz, basalt), or glass (Pyrex, soda-lime). Soda-lime spheres, for example, can be launched individually (for sizes ranging from 1.5 to 6.4mm diameter - 1/16 to 1/4 inch), in groups of three (0.2 to 1.2mm), or as a cluster of many particles (2 to 200-?m).

The target chamber is approximately 2.5 meters in diameter and height and can accommodate a wide variety of targets and mounting fixtures. It can maintain vacuum levels below 0.03 torr, or can be back filled with various gases to simulate different planetary atmospheres. Impact events are typically recorded with high-speed video/film, or Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV).

The Hypervelocity Free-Flight (HFF) Range currently comprises two active facilities: the Aerodynamic Facility (HFFAF) and the Gun Development Facility (HFFGDF). The HFFAF is a combined Ballistic Range and Shock-tube Driven Wind Tunnel. Its primary purpose is to examine the aerodynamic characteristics and flow-field structural details of free-flying aeroballistic models.

The HFFAF has a test section equipped with 16 shadowgraph-imaging stations. Each station can be used to capture an orthogonal pair of images of a hypervelocity model in flight. These images, combined with the recorded flight time history, can be used to obtain critical aerodynamic parameters such as lift, drag, static and dynamic stability, flow characteristics, and pitching moment coefficients. For very high Mach number (M > 25) simulations, models can be launched into a counter-flowing gas stream generated by the shock tube. The facility can also be configured for hypervelocity impact testing and has an aerothermodynamic capability as well.

The HFFGDF is used for gun performance enhancement studies, and occasional impact testing. The Facility uses the same arsenal of light-gas and powder guns as the HFFAF to accelerate particles that range in size from 3.2mm to 25.4mm (1/8 to 1 inch) diameter to velocities ranging from 0.5 to 8.5 km/s (1,500 to 28,000 ft/s). Most of the research effort to date has centered on Earth atmosphere entry configurations (Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Shuttle), planetary entry designs (Viking, Pioneer Venus, Galileo and MSL), and aerobraking (AFE) configurations. The facility has also been used for scramjet propulsion studies (NASP) and meteoroid/orbital debris impact studies (Space Station and RLV). Most recently, the facility was utilized for foam-debris dynamics testing in support of the Return To Flight effort.

The Electric Arc Shock Tube (EAST) Facility is used to investigate the effects of radiation and ionization that occur during very high velocity atmospheric entries. In addition, the EAST can also provide air-blast simulations requiring the strongest possible shock generation in air at an initial pressure loading of 1 atmosphere or greater. The facility has three separate driver configurations, to meet a range of test requirements: the driver can be connected to a diaphragm station of either a 102mm (4 inch) or a 610mm (24 inch) shock tube, and the high-pressure 102mm shock tube can also drive a 762mm (30 inch) shock tunnel. Energy for the drivers is supplied by a 1.25-MJ-capacitor storage system.

[edit] Recent events

Although the Bush Administration has slightly increased funding for NASA overall, the substantial realignment in research priorities which followed the announcement of the Vision for Space Exploration in 2004 has led to a significant number of layoffs at Ames.

On September 28, 2005, both Google and Ames Research Center disclosed details to a long-term research partnership. In addition to pooling engineering talent, Google plans to build a 1-million square foot facility on the ARC campus.[1]

One of the projects between Ames, Google and Carnegie Mellon University is the Gigapan Project -- a robotic platform for creating, sharing and annotating terrestrial gigapixel images.