# NASA Ames Research Center **Domain:** Institution / Aerospace / Computation **Doc Type:** Canonical Institution Node **Maturity:** Developed ## Definition **NASA Ames Research Center** is a NASA research center at Moffett Field in California whose programs span aeronautics, computing, astrobiology and space technology. ## Evolutionary Nexus Ames researchers Jason Lohn and Gregory Hornby, with Derek Linden, used evolutionary computation to produce flight-qualified antenna designs for Space Technology 5. The work used both genetic-algorithm and genetic-programming representations. [[articles/The Evolutionary Roots of Silicon Valley|The Evolutionary Roots of Silicon Valley]] makes Ames a decisive bridge: natural selection's formal structure became an engineering method, and the resulting artifact was fabricated, launched and operated in space. ## Architecture Context The project also demonstrates that objectives are environmental contracts. Beamwidth, bandwidth, mass, geometry and orbit became a fitness function. When mission requirements changed, the search had to be rerun; adaptation remained relative to specification. ## Sources / Provenance - NASA Technical Reports Server, “An Evolved Antenna for Deployment on NASA's Space Technology 5 Mission”: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20040152147 - NASA Ames: https://www.nasa.gov/ames/ ## See Also [[wiki/Evolutionary Algorithms|Evolutionary Algorithms]], [[wiki/Evolved Antenna|Evolved Antenna]], [[wiki/Objective Function|Objective Function]], [[wiki/Exobiology|Exobiology]]