The Electronics Research Center (ERC) was a NASA research facility located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, across the street from MIT at Kendall Square. The ERC opened in September 1964 as the successor to the North Eastern Operations Office which opened in July 1962. The Center took over the administration of contracts, grants, and other NASA business in New England from the North Eastern Operations Office, and was Shutdown in June 1970. Its former campus is now the site of the United States Department of Transportation's John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center. Mission The ERC served to develop the space agency's in-house expertise in electronics during the Apollo era. A second key function was to serve as a graduate and post-graduate training center within the framework of a regional government-industry-university alliance. The ERC was considered to be of equal importance as other NASA field centers such as the Langley Research Center and the Marshall Space Flight Center. By fiscal 1968, NASA planned for the ERC to be employing 1,600 professional and technical workers and 500 in administrative and support positions. History The Center was located in Cambridge after Massachusetts politicians unsuccessfully lobbied for the Manned Spacecraft Center. The center started its operations in Technology Square on Main Street while its campus was being built on Broadway. The location of the ERC allowed it to take advantage of the proximity to MIT, and to a lesser extent, it benefited from proximity to Harvard University, the MIT Lincoln Laboratory, the Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories, and the electronics industry located along Massachusetts Route 128. At the time of the Center's founding, the technical, industrial, and commercial aspects of microelectronics were ascendant, especially in the Boston-Cambridge Technopolis. Nature of research Research at the ERC was conducted in ten different laboratories: space guidance systems computers instrumentation research space optics power conditioning and distribution microwave radiation electronics components, * qualifications and standards control and information systems Researchers investigated such areas as microwave and laser communications; the miniaturization and radiation resistance of electronic components, guidance and control systems, photovoltaic energy conversion, information display devices, instrumentation, and computers and data processing. Although no publication has investigated the nature of the research or professional training conducted at the ERC, an internal NASA publication lists a few accomplishments identified with the center, such as: a high-frequency (30 GHz) oscillator a miniaturized tunnel-diode transducer a transistor more tolerant of space radiation