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NASA’s Electronics Research Center

We Hardly Knew Ye

Andrew J. Butrica, Ph.D.

Historical Consultant
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Why and How the ERC was 

created

The Kelley Study

Gunn Effect

Air Traffic Control Satellites

Integrated Circuits

The End
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Primacy of Electronics

• Lucrative electronics industry 

• Rapid pace of technological change

• Rockets and electronics were central to 

NASA’s successes in space

• Webb: “Our accomplishments in space 

have stemmed from two principal sources: 

the . . . modern rocket. . .; the second—

whose importance must not be 

forgotten—is modern electronics.” 
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Primacy of Electronics

• Electronics costs represented a substantial 

portion of NASA’s purchases

• Webb: “Electronics components account for over 

40 per cent of the cost of our boosters, over 70 

per cent of the cost of our spacecraft, and over 

90 per cent of the cost of the resources going to 

tracking and data acquisition.”

• Dependence on electronics meant that NASA 

needed its own electronics expertise, if for no 

other reason than to be able to do business 

effectively with electronics contractors
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NASA Electronics Strategy

• Eventually NASA’s “more complex spacecraft will 

use microcircuits by the hundreds of thousands.”

• NASA estimated that by 1970, 70% of its 

spacecraft electronics would consist of 

integrated electronics

• This strategy, like the Apollo guidance computer 

decision, drove NASA toward finding highly 

reliable integrated circuits and microelectronic 

components for its many planned space missions

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OART Established

• November 1, 1961: NASA Headquarters 

reorganization

• Responded to President J. F. Kennedy’s 

mandate to put an astronaut on the Moon 

by the end of the decade

• Established Office of Advanced Research 

and Technology (OART)

• Organized along disciplinary lines
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Electronics and Control Directorate

instrumentation & data processing

control & stabilization

techniques & components

communications & tracking

guidance & navigation
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Kelley Study

Memorandum, March 2, 1962

Dr. Robert C. Seamans, Jr., NASA Associate 

Administrator

OART to present “a plan to strengthen 

NASA’s capability in the electronics and 

guidance and control field”
Albert J. Kelley
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Kelley Study

• June 1962

• Areas of NASA strength in electronics 

expertise:

– guidance and navigation

– control and stabilization

– communications and tracking

– instrumentation and data processing
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Kelley Study

• BUT:

• Expertise “widely diffused throughout the 

Centers with spotty emphasis, in short a 

heterogeneous group of bits and pieces.”

• Center-funded research projects tended to be 

“specific rather than basic, more technological 

than fundamental in nature, and of more 

immediate application than those that are 

supported by headquarters.”
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Kelley Study

• Orientation of research reflected the 

interests of the centers’ researchers: 

“A substantial fraction of the capable 

electronics personnel at the centers 

are concerned primarily with project 

management or space flight project 

engineering,” rather than with longrange research
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Kelley Study

• Conclusions:

• NASA lacked adequate employees 

conducting research and development as 

well as applied research and technology

• NASA would have to rely extensively on 

research conducted by industry and 

academia 

• Need to consider creating a new center
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Kelley Study

• Conclusions:

• The new center: 

• 2,000 to 3,000 new staff 

• $50 million to $60 million in new facilities 
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Three Alternatives
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First Alternative

• Establish Electronic Systems R&D Groups 

at a few centers

• Rejected: 

• Denied electronics research “the primary 

attention that it warranted” 

• Precluded “the creation of an essential 

‘critical mass’ or concentration of 

electronics capability”
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Second Alternative

• Create one major electronics group at an 

existing center

• Models: 

• Life Sciences Group at Ames Research 

Center

• Space Task Group at Langley Research 

Center
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Second Alternative

Disadvantages

• Would result in doubling the size of the 

center

• Unwieldy research management situation

• Adversely affect the center’s “quality of 

performance” and the quality of the 

electronics research

• Advantage: the necessary “critical mass” 

of expertise
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Langley Satellite Study

• July 1962: Langley study commissioned 

by OART

• Establish an electronics satellite facility at 

Langley?

• The satellite facility: staff = 3,275; 

buildings costing $50,800,000

• Why Langley?

• Had 43% of all NASA electronics research 

professionals
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Langley Satellite Study

Disadvantages

• Too large to be managed efficiently

• Like trying to run two centers with one 

management structure

• Managing the research would be a 

nightmare

• Research would not be focused on a few 

large projects, but would be highly 

compartmentalized and diffused
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Langley Satellite Study

Disadvantages

• Manage hundreds of relatively independent projects at 

any given time

• Managing them would require detailed and closely 

coordinated management

• NASA Deputy Assistant Administrator Boyd Meyers: “we 

felt that we would wind up with maybe a 6,000-man 

laboratory, which we felt is kind of large and difficult to 

manage, particularly when you have aeronautics and 

structures and propulsion and aerodynamics and so forth 

going on in one laboratory, and then to put electronics 

on top of that.” 
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Third Alternative

 Create a new center just for electronics research

 Obviate the management disadvantages of 

expanding an existing center

 Provide the desired emphasis on electronics 

research

 Conduct both basic research and advanced 

technology programs

 Develop agency-wide performance parameters 

and standards for electronics components
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Third Alternative

 Liaison between NASA and its researchers in 

academia and industry

 Award grants and contracts to industry and 

academia to undertake research and 

development

 Focus of NASA-wide initiatives to encourage 

industry to increase its research and 

development capacity

 Furnish technical advice on selecting contractor 

research designs to NASA
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Third Alternative

Rival in size (staff and facilities) to Langley 

or Marshall

Staff of 2,100

900 engineers and scientists

Facilities costing over $60 million
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Third Alternative

Location: Cambridge

MIT and Harvard

Electronics industries along Route 128

Air Force’s Cambridge Research Laboratory

Mitre Corporation

MIT Lincoln Laboratory

MIT Instrumentation (Draper) Laboratory

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Electronics Research Center

September 1, 1964: officially opened

Rented rooms and buildings

Created by merger of NEO and ERTG

July 1962: New England Operations Office

February 1963: Electronics Research Task 

Group (Electronics and Control 

Directorate)
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ERC Laboratories

 Space guidance

 Systems

 Computers

 Instrumentation

 Space optics

 Power conditioning and distribution

 Microwave radiation

 Electronics components

 Qualifications and standards

 Control and information systems
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Gunn Effect
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Gunn Effect

 Discovered by J. B. Gunn (IBM)

 Published discovery in 1963

 Ridley-Watkins-Hilsum-Gunn effect

 Brian K. Ridley; T. B. Watkins, Cyril Hilsum

 The production of microwave oscillations when a 

constant voltage in excess of a critical level is 

applied to opposite faces of a semiconductor 

(gallium arsenide, later indium phosphide)

 Gunn patents (assigned IBM)
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Gunn Effect

ERC Research

• Variety of devices, variations

• Gallium arsenide studies

• 1967: Gunn diode rooftop test

• Handheld unit beamed music from the roof of 

ERC to roof of the Prudential Tower (Boston), 

completed in 1964 (229 m, 750 ft)

• Distance: one mile

• Researchers: Dr. Harold Roth, W. Deter Straub, 

and John A. Ayer
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Gunn Effect

• 1968: Successful demonstration of Gunn 

microwave device between Boston and New 

Hampshire

• Distance: 81 miles

• Line-of-sight transmission between Mount Kearsarge, NH, and the Prudential Tower

• Gunn devices operated at X-band, peak power of 

1-1/2 watts

• With 5 watts now available, estimated that 

communication link can be extended to more 

than 700 miles
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Gunn Effect Patents

• Wilhelm Rindner, Harold Roth, “Voltage-tunable 

Gunn-type Microwave generator,” U.S. 

3,509,491, applied June 2, 1967; issued April 28, 

1970

• Rindner, Roth “Gunn-type Solid-state Devices,” 

U.S. 3,667,010; applied July 6, 1967; issued May 

30, 1972

• Dr. Frank R. Holmstrom, “Shielded cathode 

mode bulk effects device,” U.S. 3,614,557; 

applied May 16, 1969; issued October 19, 1971
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Air Traffic Control Satellite
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1963

• TRANSIT: military navigation satellite system 

(Navy)

• DoD-NASA agreement (January 1963) assigned 

to NASA responsibility for exploring nonmilitary 

uses of the system

• 7-month study to determine requirements of 

nonmilitary ships and aircraft

• FAA, Cost Guard, Coast and Geodetic Survey, 

Maritime Administration, Bureau of Commercial 

Fisheries
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Requirements of a Nonmilitary 

Navigation System

• All weather availability

• Global coverage

• Moderate cost

• Simplicity of operation

• High reliability

• Ease of maintenance

• Versatility (different user types)

• Long life
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1963 Study

Conclusions

• No great need for an additional longdistance system to provide position 

determination for merchant ships

• Urgent need for a positioning and traffic 

control system for aircraft, especially over 

the North Atlantic

• Situation will become more critical as SSTs 

become operational
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1963 Study

• “If, however, such a system could, as part 

of its routine operation, provide means for 

air traffic control for all classes of aircraft

now in operation or contemplated, it 

would solve one of the major problems 

confronting the world today, a problem 

expected to become increasingly urgent 

with the anticipated increase in number, 

variety, and performance of aircraft using 

the airspace.”
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Nonmilitary Limitations of TRANSIT

• Cost of receiving equipment for some time to 

come is likely to be too high for general use

• TRANSIT equipment of necessity will be 

complex, and will require use of a computer

• Nonmilitary ships may find difficulty in meeting 

the requirements for accurate velocity vector 

input

• Need for adequate maintenance personnel 

aboard ship
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Nonmilitary Limitations of TRANSIT

• TRANSIT equipment not likely to be suitable for 

aircraft use

• Complexity of satellites may impose severe 

useful life limitations or system reliability hazard

• Technique provides only positional information 

and time signals

• Military restrictions may limit use by civilians

• Exceptions: hydrographic and oceanographic 

survey ships; useful as a geodetic tool
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Overcoming Limitations of TRANSIT

• Remove complexity of the system from 

ships and aircraft and satellites

• Shift complexity to ground stations
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More Studies

System definition studies

• General Electric – UNIVAC

• Westinghouse

Design study (CY 1964)

Development and fabrication 

(CY 1965)
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NASA/FAA Cooperation

• 1966: NASA & FAA considered developing 

a satellite system for worldwide navigation 

and communications

• Main concern: use in navigation, traffic 

control, and communications among ships 

and aircraft in ocean areas, initially the 

North Atlantic.
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ERC

• October 1966: NASA HQ considered a request 

from ERC to undertake a study to define the 

required research areas and to establish the 

system concepts for the satellite configuration

• Created Study Project Group

• Dr. Stanley E. Ross, Systems Lab, Project Leader

• Gilmore H. Trafford, Microwave Lab

• Leo M. Keane, Guidance Lab
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VHF Studies

• Application Technology Satellite 1

• Launched December 7, 1966

• VHF experiment for communications with 

aircraft, ships, meteorological remote 

terminals, and to evaluate VHF satellite 

navigation
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VHF Studies

• Application Technology Satellite 3

• Launched November 5, 1967

• Initial tests of NASA’s Omega Position Location 

Experiment (OPLE) for aircraft and ship navigation

• Showed that OPLE could provide a position location 

accuracy of about a mile

• Tests units for an FAA airplane and a Coast and Geodetic 

Survey ship to be used in future OPLE experiments were 

delivered to NASA.

• Five aerospace companies submitted proposals for a 

navigation experiment to use range signals between an 

aircraft and ATS 1 and 3
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VHF Studies

• OPLE came within 1 to 2 miles of locating a station 

wagon

• April 1968 test: vehicle had VLF antenna to receive 

Omega signals, VHF antenna to communicate with ATS 

3; vehicle moved at speeds up to 60 mph

• May 1968 test: NASA aircraft outfitted with VHF and VLF 

antennas

• OPLE operated satisfactorily at aircraft speeds as great 

as 185 mph

• OPLE located the aircraft within about 5 miles of its 

“true” position
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VHF Studies

• Maritime Administration conducted 

communications and range-navigation tests between the SS Santa Lucia, a commercial 

vessel sailing from New Jersey to Chile, and the 

ATS 1 and 3 satellites

• Preliminary analysis:

• VHF signals can include voice transmissions, 

radio-teletype, data transmissions, time signals, and weather facsimile

• No interference to or from the radar, HF radio, or 

VHF ship-to-shore aboard the Santa Lucia

reported
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VHF Studies

• OPLE test: an aircraft was located within 

two to four miles, a ship and buoy within 

three miles, and a balloon within half a 

mile

• Aircraft supplied by FAA

• Buoy and ship by Environmental Sciences 

Services Administration

• Drifting balloon by National Center for 

Atmospheric Research
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VHF Studies

NASA-DoD Cooperation

• OPLE used ATS 3 and DoD’s Omega navigation 

system to continue position location and data 

collection experiments

• February 1969 tests conducted in cooperation 

with the Office of Naval Research

• Located a large fixed buoy in Bermuda waters 

within 1-1/2 miles

• OPLE transmitted oceanographic data to 

Goddard Space Flight Center
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UHF Study Proposed

• May 1969: FAA proposed that NASA-FAA 

investigate the possibility of a preoperational 

UHF aeronautical satellite system for one-ocean 

aircraft communications and surveillance

• Study satellite location and capability, ground 

stations, and satellite management needs

• NASA agreed to study; assembled a study team 

of scientists and engineers from ERC, Goddard, 

and Headquarters
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L-Band

• April 1969: ERC’s Communications and 

Navigation Satellite Programs Office completed 

and published the ATS 5 experiment plan

• Use jet aircraft and an L-band transponder on 

the satellite to gather flight test data necessary 

to evaluate the feasibility of using L-band 

frequencies for communications and position 

location functions in an air traffic control system
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ATS 5 & 6

• ATS 5 launched August 12, 1969; 

malfunctioned

• ATS 6 launched May 30, 1974

• Studies carried out at L-band (1550-1650 

MHz): relay links to aircraft were 

established and multiple aircraft tracking 

was demonstrated

• Position Location and Aircraft 

Communication Experiment (PLACE)
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Integrated Circuits

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Integrated Circuits

• NASA spin-off (“technology utilization”) 

literature: economic impact of NASA on 

the development of integrated circuits

• Fails to distinguish the separate influences 

of NASA and Defense Department funding

• Apollo Guidance Computer

• Eldon Hall et al

• MIT Instrumentation Laboratory

• NASA supplied need and money
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NASA and Electronics

• Electronic components not compatible with 

space conditions (radiation and temperature 

extremes, e.g.)

• Systems operate unattended for long times

• Webb: “Electronics components account for 

over 40 per cent of the cost of our boosters, 

over 70 per cent of the cost of our spacecraft, 

and over 90 per cent of the cost of the 

resources going to tracking and data 

acquisition.”
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Ranger 6 Diodes

• Electronic and electrical fabrication problems

• 1962 Ranger 5 failure => Ranger Board of 

Inquiry (Kelley Board)

• Ranger 6: Two serious test failures in the 

General Electric guidance components resulted 

from short circuits caused by loose gold flakes in 

certain diodes (Continental Devices)

• How could flight equipment containing many 

contaminated diodes have passed all JPL tests 

without failure?
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Wafer Fabrication

• Low portion (10%) of integrated circuits produced on a 

given wafer that were suitable for aerospace uses

• Only 75% of the chips on a completed wafer were in 

working condition

• That portion fell to 50% following further handling

• Of the remaining 50%:

• About half were suitable for low-quality commercial 

applications

• 30% were suitable for high-quality industrial or 

governmental (military) uses

• Only 20% were suitable for aerospace applications
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Microelectronics Subcommittee

• Parts Steering Committee 

• Office of Reliability and Quality Assurance chaired the 

Parts Steering Committee, which included 

representatives from all NASA centers

• Set up the Microelectronics Subcommittee

• NASA Management Instruction (NMI) 5320, “NASA 

Microelectronics Reliability Program,” established the 

agency’s reliability program for microcircuits

• Provided a uniform approach for the specification, test, 

and procurement of microelectronics

• NASA merged its requirements with those of the Defense 

Department in order to establish a set of standard 

government requirements. 
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Microelectronics Subcommittee

• Agency-wide effort to improve the reliability of 

microelectronic devices, especially integrated 

circuits

• Symposia

• Technical handbooks on approved electronic 

components and other critical publications (twovolume handbook was a database of approved 

electronic parts)

• Research

• ERC PREDICT facility
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ERC IC Improvements

Design

Fabrication

Testing
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Integrated Circuit Design

• Computer-aided circuit design

• Collaboration with industry, academia, and 

military
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IC Fabrication Process

• Ion implantation of dopants

• Method for separating semiconductor wafers into chips

• Glass-passivated integrated circuits

• Selective gold diffusion of monolithic silicon devices and 

circuits

• Formation of P-N junctions in gallium antimonide

• Technique for depositing silicon dioxide on indium 

arsenide

• Scribing silicon wafers with a laser

• New method for stripping photoresist material

• New photoetching technique for metal-oxide layers
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IC Testing

• Scanning electron microscopy of integrated circuits

• Automated testing and diagnostics of electronic 

components

• Use of x-ray spectrograph to measure the thickness of 

aluminum deposited on silicon

• Reliable method for testing gross leaks in semiconductor 

component packages

• Reliable non-destructive method for measuring the 

thickness of a selected area of a semiconductor device

• Development of new techniques in reflectometry as 

applied to testing and diagnostics of microcircuits
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IC Research

• Thin films

• Superconducting electronics

• Microwave integrated circuits

• Research into metal-oxide semiconductors 

(MOS)

• Metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect 

transistors (MOSFETs)

• Metal nitride oxide semiconductors 

(MNOS)
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MOSFET

• Goddard used ERC-developed MOSFETs on the Interplanetary Monitoring Platform (IMP) Explorers 33, 

34, and 35

• IMP was a Goddard proposal to establish a network of 

satellites in order to obtain continuous monitoring of 

space radiation in support of the Apollo program

• The IMP spacecraft used 1,000 integrated circuits to 

replace 15,000 discrete parts

• The MOSFETs 1) on average had ten active devices in 

each integrated circuit, and 2) operated successfully for 

about 200,000 hours in space

• MOSFET ICs performed multiple functions versus usual 

integrated circuit