Exploring the Cosmos: NASA’s Stellar Moments from Silicon Valley in 2024

As NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley marks its 85^th anniversary since establishment, join us in reflecting on some of the notable achievements in science, engineering, research, and innovation from 2024.

Scientists at Ames were part of a collaborative team focused on comprehending and pinpointing the underlying cause of the unforeseen char loss on the Artemis I Orion spacecraft’s heat shield. Utilizing Avcoat material response data from Artemis I, the investigative team successfully replicated the Artemis I entry trajectory environment — crucial for discerning the issue’s cause — within the arc jet facilities at NASA Ames.

Following ten months in orbit, the Starling spacecraft swarm effectively accomplished its primary mission’s significant objectives, showcasing remarkable progress in swarm configurations in low Earth orbit, such as disseminating and sharing vital information along with autonomous decision-making capabilities.

NASA’s BioNutrients initiative has entered its fifth year, exploring how microorganisms can generate on-demand nutrients for astronauts on extended space missions. Maintaining astronaut health is essential, and as this project nears completion, researchers have coordinated production packs on Earth concurrently with astronauts processing similar packs in space aboard the International Space Station. This demonstrates NASA’s ability to supply nutrients after more than five years in space, enhancing confidence in supporting crewed missions to Mars.

Ames enhanced its powerful hyperwall system, a 300-square-foot wall of LCD screens comprising over a billion pixels to showcase supercomputer-scale visualizations of extensive datasets generated by NASA supercomputers and equipment. The hyperwall serves as one method for researchers to leverage NASA’s high-performance computing technology for deeper analysis of their data and advancement of the agency’s missions and research.

Ames plays an integral role in the agency’s artificial intelligence endeavors through ongoing research and development, collaborative agencywide efforts, and communication initiatives. This year, NASA introduced David Salvagnini as its first chief artificial intelligence officer and conducted the first agencywide town hall on artificial intelligence, illustrating how the agency is responsibly utilizing and developing AI to propel missions and research forward.

NASA’s Advanced Composite Solar Sail System was successfully launched from Māhia, New Zealand, in April and deployed its sail in August, marking the commencement of mission operations. This small satellite signifies a transformative future in solar sailing, utilizing lightweight composite booms to support a reflective polymer sail that harnesses sunlight pressure as propulsion.

In 2024, Ames researchers examined Earth’s oceans and water bodies from diverse perspectives — from supporting NASA’s Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem, or PACE, mission to providing students in Puerto Rico with experiences in oceanography and coral reef preservation. In collaboration with various partners, our scientists and engineers informed ecosystem management by integrating satellite observations of Earth with animal tracking data. Alongside the U.S. Geological Survey, a NASA team continued to evaluate a specialized instrument package to monitor changes in river flow rates.

Ames researchers employed a series of supercomputer simulations to uncover a possible new hypothesis regarding the formation of Mars’ moons: The initial phase, as the findings suggest, may have involved the fragmentation of an asteroid.

Using NASA’s state-of-the-art James Webb Space Telescope, another scientist from Ames aided in the discovery of the smallest asteroids ever detected in the primary asteroid belt.

A heat shield material developed and manufactured at Ames successfully facilitated the safe return of a spacecraft containing the first product processed on an autonomous, free-flying, in-space manufacturing platform. The spacecraft’s re-entry in February, from Varda Space Industries based in El Segundo, California, in collaboration with Rocket Lab USA from Long Beach, California, marked the inaugural instance of a NASA-created thermal protection material, known as C-PICA (Conformal Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator), returning from space.

The HelioSwarm mission, comprising a fleet of nine spacecraft, will deliver profound insights into our universe and provide crucial data to ensure the safety of astronauts, satellites, and communication signals, including GPS. The mission team is diligently working towards a launch in 2029.

The microwave-sized CubeSat, CAPSTONE, persistently orbits in a cis-lunar near-rectilinear halo orbit following its launch in 2022. This unique orbit continues to pave the way for future spacecraft and Gateway, a lunar-orbiting outpost that is integral to NASA’s Artemis initiative, as the team consistently collects data.

NASA’s uncrewed aircraft system traffic management concepts have facilitated the introduction of newly authorized package delivery drone flights in the Dallas area.

Effectively managing our crowded airspace is a complex and vital challenge, ensuring safe and efficient movement of commercial and public air traffic, as well as autonomous vehicles. In partnership with AeroVironment and Aerostar, NASA showcased an unprecedented air traffic management concept that may allow aircraft to operate safely at higher altitudes. The agency has also noted ongoing fuel savings and a decrease in commercial flight delays at Dallas Fort-Worth Airport, due to a NASA-developed tool enabling flight coordinators to identify more efficient alternative takeoff routes.

BioSentinel – a small satellite roughly the size of a cereal box – is presently over 30 million miles away from Earth, orbiting our Sun. Since its launch aboard NASA’s Artemis I over two years ago, BioSentinel continues to gather essential data for scientists striving to comprehend how solar radiation storms traverse space and where their effects – along with potential implications for life beyond Earth – are most pronounced. In May 2024, the satellite encountered a coronal mass ejection without the shielding of our planet’s magnetic field, collecting measurements of harmful solar particles in deep space during a solar storm.

NASA researchers persisted in developing and testing airspace management technologies aimed at enabling remotely-piloted aircraft to combat and monitor wildland fires continuously. 

The Advanced Capabilities for Emergency Response Operations (ACERO) project aspires to harness drones and advanced aviation technologies to enhance wildland fire coordination and operations.

The Strategic Tactical Radio and Tactical Overwatch (STRATO) initiative is a collaborative project utilizing high-altitude balloons to improve real-time communications among firefighters tackling wildland fires. Ensuring cellular communication from above can enhance the safety of firefighters and improve firefighting efficacy.

The NASA Ames Visitor Center at Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland, California has undergone a complete transformation, offering a 360-degree experience with new exhibits, models, and more. An interactive exhibit places visitors in the role of a NASA Ames scientist, designing and testing rovers, aircraft, and robots for space exploration.

NASA astronauts, scientists, and researchers, along with leaders from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), engaged with cancer patients and convened to discuss potential research opportunities and collaborations as part of President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden’s Cancer Moonshot initiative on Oct. 4. During their interaction with patients, NASA astronaut Yvonne Cagle and former astronaut Kenneth Cockrell addressed queries regarding space travel and existence in space.

Ames and the University of California, Berkeley, enhanced their collaboration by organizing workshops to exchange knowledge in their areas of technical expertise, including Advanced Air Mobility, and to generate ideas for the Berkeley Space Center, an innovation hub proposed for establishment at Ames’ NASA Research Park. Under a new arrangement, NASA will also provide supercomputing resources for UC Berkeley, fostering the development of novel computing algorithms and software applicable to various scientific and technological domains.