NASA Hosts Unveiling of Plans for New Silicon Valley Innovation Hub

A new campus, called Berkeley Space Center, aims to offer lab, office, and educational spaces along with student and faculty housing, a conference center, and retail space on 36 acres within the NASA Research Park at the agency’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley.

The University of California Berkeley and San Francisco-based developer SKS Partners proposed the new campus and innovation hub for research and advancements in astronautics, aeronautics, quantum computing, climate studies, social sciences, and more during an event Monday at NASA Ames.

Berkeley Space Center follows on a NASA-UC Berkeley partnership created to explore potential mutually beneficial learning opportunities, including accelerating local and national capabilities for transporting cargo and passengers using emerging automation and electric propulsion technologies; examining how biomanufacturing can enable deep space exploration; and leveraging NASA’s high-performance computing assets. The new campus aims to bring together researchers from the private sector, academia, and the government to tackle the complex scientific, technological, and societal issues facing our world.

“The diverse portfolios of NASA Ames and Berkeley open potential future collaborations in a variety of areas including interplanetary exploration, air transportation capabilities, the search for life beyond our planet, and environmental studies for the benefit of all,” said Eugene Tu, Ames center director.

NASA Research Park is a world-class research and development hub for government, academia, non-profits, and industry, located at Ames in Moffett Field, California. Ames has a long history of partnering with diverse entities – from space technology start-ups to the Federal Aviation Administration – to combine strengths to tackle great challenges. Through the Berkeley Space Center, UC Berkeley joins Carnegie Mellon as the second major university to choose NASA Research Park for a new campus.

“The Berkeley Space Center will bring together leading experts in academia, government, and industry to enable new collaboration in aerospace, bioengineering, advanced air mobility, and other areas of research,” said U.S. Rep. Anna G. Eshoo. “Bravo to NASA Ames and UC Berkeley on this watershed moment in the transformation of Moffett Field into an innovation hub and a model for bringing together the brightest minds in academia and government.”

The United States Geological Survey serves as another model partnership at Ames, with development of a new campus collocating at NASA Research Park to support joint research in lunar prospecting, earthquake simulations, ecology, remote sensing work, and more.

“As an advocate for advancing the science and technology ecosystem of the Bay Area, I’m very proud to see this collaboration happening here in Silicon Valley,” said Lofgren. “This is a perfect example of the importance of NASA’s enhanced use leasing (EUL) authority, which allows us to take full advantage of NASA’s unique infrastructure and capabilities. Everybody benefits when we put smart policies to use like EUL. The product of this partnership could create jobs, build a collaborative atmosphere, and help train the next generation of STEM leaders. I look forward to following along the progress of the Center’s construction and, one day, touring the Berkeley Space Center.”

Learn more about Ames’ world-class research and development in aeronautics, science, and exploration technology at: https://www.nasa.gov/ames