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As NASA\u2019s Ames Research Center in California\u2019s Silicon Valley enters its 85th<\/sup> year since its founding, join us as we take a look back at some of our highlights of science, engineering, research, and innovation from 2024.<\/p>\n Researchers at Ames were part of the team tasked to better understand and identify the root cause of the unexpected char loss across the Artemis I Orion spacecraft\u2019s heat shield. Using Avcoat material response data from Artemis I, the investigation team was able to replicate the Artemis I entry trajectory environment \u2014 a key part of understanding the cause of the issue \u2014 inside the arc jet facilities at NASA Ames.\u00a0<\/p>\n After ten months in orbit, the Starling spacecraft swarm successfully demonstrated its primary mission\u2019s key objectives, representing significant achievements in the capability of swarm configurations in low Earth orbit, including distributing and sharing important information and autonomous decision making.\u00a0<\/p>\n NASA\u2019s BioNutrients entered its fifth year in its mission to investigate how microorganisms can produce on-demand nutrients for astronauts during long-duration space missions. Keeping astronauts healthy is critical and as the project comes to a close, researchers have processed production packs on Earth on the same day astronauts processed production packs in space on the International Space Station to demonstrate that NASA can produce nutrients after at least five years in space, providing confidence it will be capable of supporting crewed missions to Mars.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Ames upgraded its powerful hyperwall system, a 300-square foot wall of LCD screens with over a billion pixels to display supercomputer-scale visualizations of the very large datasets produced by NASA supercomputers and instruments. The hyperwall is just one way researchers can utilize NASA\u2019s high-end computing technology to better understand their data and advance the agency\u2019s missions and research.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ames contributes to the agency\u2019s artificial intelligence work through ongoing research and development, agencywide collaboration, and communications efforts. This year, NASA announced David Salvagnini as its inaugural chief artificial intelligence officer and held the first agencywide town hall on artificial intelligence sharing how the agency is safely using and developing artificial intelligence to advance missions and research.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n