NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center has managed or played key roles in hundreds of NASA missions.

The agency's website states that it is the nation's largest organization of space scientists and engineers. There is a main campus in Maryland.

The center has a special focus on Earth observations, which has allowed it to track climate change, as well as manage many instruments and missions across the solar system. In other words, it means that it has its hands in missions that go from Earth to the farthest reaches of the solar system.

Elizabeth Howell headshot

Several installations are managed by GSFC in other places.

  • The Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia's eastern shore — a launching site for suborbital rockets, research balloons and research aircraft. 
  • The Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City — a hub for climate research. 
  • The Katherine Johnson Independent Verification and Validation Facility, in Fairmont, West Virginia, where computer programs for space missions are tested. (Johnson was a pioneering Black NASA mathematician who is best known for calculating the trajectory needed to get the Apollo 11 mission to the moon and back.)
  • The White Sands Complex in New Mexico — one of the ground stations for the TDRS network.

The public is welcome to visit the visitor center at the Greenbelt campus and the visitor center at Wallops.

The GSFC was founded in the late 1960's. Alfred Rosenthal explained in his 1968 publication that the GSFC provided an institutional base for experts from military projects.

A long list of other duties were assigned to the center, including the development of instruments to fly in space, interpretation of scientific results from flight programs and administration of contracts.

Glenn and Langley, which were based on established aeronautical facilities, were created to work on space research.

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The Department of Agriculture owned the land where the new center is located. In March 1961, the center was formally dedicated and named in honor of American rocket pioneer Robert H.

According to the center's website, there are more than 34 buildings on the main campus. The center stated in its annual report that it employed more than 10,000 people.

aerial view of buildings surrounded by grass and trees

An aerial view of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. (Image credit: NASA Goddard/Bill Hrybyk)
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Notable early achievements

In the first decade of NASA's existence, there were 104 launches, including 40 Explorer satellites to measure the space environment around Earth. The majority of these early missions were successful despite some technical problems.

The Explorer satellites showed how the Earth's magnetic field reflected most solar wind particles around the planet while trapping some particles in the Van Allen radiation belts.

More information about the Delta family can be found here.

The very first communications satellite, a huge mylar balloon called Echo that reflected radio transmissions back to Earth, was launched in 1960.

In a "no exchange of funds" partnership, the partners contribute services and equipment to a project, but they don't pay any of the other partners with money. The International Space Station is one project that uses this arrangement.

The Delta rocket was created as a vehicle to launch small to medium-sized objects into Earth's atmosphere. According to Boeing, the Delta II became an "industry workhorse" with 155 launches from 1989 to 2018?

a rocket lifting off surrounded by an orange plume

A US Air Force Delta II booster with a GPS satellite. Goddard engineers developed the Delta rocket that was used for numerous launches.  (Image credit: U.S. AIr Force photo)
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Goddard's communication network

Many stations are needed to keep in touch with a craft throughout a single orbit because a satellite only spends a few minutes within range. The example of international cooperation on technical projects has been set by the fact that a series of worldwide networks of antennas on Earth are used to communicate with satellites.

The Mercury Space Flight Network of the 1960s was started by the Minitrack network, which was created for the very first satellites. Telephone lines were used to communicate between ground stations. There was a backup mission-control center that could take over from Houston if needed.

The Satellite Tracking and Data Acquisition Network (STADAN) was set up to handle the huge data downloads from the first robotic space observatory. The idea of using satellites to relay messages between Earth stations was demonstrated by theATS.

The Tracking and Data Relay Satellite system provides near-continuous communication with the International Space Station and other satellites.

The Near Earth Network and the NASA Communications Network send data between control centers. Laser light is being used to transmit more data per second than radio waves, according to the report.

people sitting down and looking at computers

Goddard's Networks Integration Center, pictured here, leads all coordination for space-to-ground communications support for the International Space Station and ensures complete communications coverage through NASA's Space Network. (Image credit: NASA Goddard)
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Goddard's space exploration accomplishments

In the 70s, the work grew to include deeper views into space and a closer look at Earth.

The sun's rays can't be seen from the ground because of the Earth's atmosphere blocking some of the rays. The way for future on-orbit servicing of the Hubble Space Telescope was paved by the repair of the Solar Max satellite in 1984.

In 1970 the first object thought to contain a black hole was discovered by the Uhuru satellite. Marjorie was the first woman to manage a NASA project.

The link between galaxies and quasars was established by other satellites. The satellites looked at the gas in clusters of galaxies and found new ones.

The International Ultraviolet Explorer satellite, launched in 1978 and featuring a new type of stabilizing gyro, was later used on the Hubble Space Telescope. A new transparent software system was demonstrated by the satellite.

The Cosmic Background Explorer was launched in 1989 and made the first measurement of the Cosmic Microwave Background. The 2006 Nobel Prize in physics was shared by John Mather.

Early weather satellites were able to take pictures only when they passed over a certain region. The first Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES), developed by GSFC in 1975, was almost stationary above the North American coast.

The series has been improved many times. Once built and launched, the GOES satellites are turned over to theNOAA for daily operation.

The first space-based color photograph of the entire Earth was taken in 1967. An instrument on the Nimbus 7 confirmed the existence of a hole in the ozone layer.

Goddard's facilities and future projects

There are a number of special test and manufacturing facilities on the main campus.

  • A centrifuge than can subject 5,000 lbs. (2,268 kilograms) of spacecraft hardware to 30 g.
  • A reverberation chamber that can generate up to 150 decibels of sound, subjecting hardware to the noise levels of a rocket launch.
  • A Space Environment Chamber that can achieve a wide range of vacuum and thermal conditions.
  • The Spacecraft Magnetic Test Facility, with a magnetic coil system that can cancel Earth's magnetic field.
  • The High Bay Clean Room, suitable for final assembly of a spacecraft, the largest of its kind in the world, with a volume of 1.3 million cubic feet (36,800 cubic meters).

More than 50 space flight projects have been worked on by Goddard. The GSFC campus is home to the mission control centers of several space telescopes. Two Mars probes carry science instruments developed by NASA. There are numerous solar missions that have Goddard management.

If you've seen a beautiful animation of how a solar eclipse works or what makes the moon's phases, it might have come from the scientific visualization studio at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

Wallops: Small and adventurous flight facility

From NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Virginia, sounding rockets can fly up to an altitude of up to 900 miles. At the end of World War II, Wallops began as a missile test facility and was under the management of Goddard in 1981.

Sounding rockets can be used to test space instruments and study regions of space that can't be reached with aircraft, balloons or satellites. Wallops hosted over 117,000 launches by the end of the year.

The Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport is close to NASA's operations on Wallops Island. The Commonwealth of Virginia runs the program.

a rocket beside launch towers and behind water

A Northrop Grumman Antares rocket with a Cygnus spacecraft, as seen at sunrise on April 16, 2019, at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. (Image credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls)
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GISS: Climate research in New York City

Robert Jastrow, a physicist who had been doing theoretical work for the Naval Research Laboratory in the 1950s, was the first director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

Jastrow convinced NASA managers that the theoretical research division should be located close to major research universities to attract academic researchers. In 1961, the offices of GISS were located in New York.

The building it now occupies was moved in the late 1960's. The ground floor of this building is where the "Seinfeld" cast hangouts.

Under Jastrow the institute focused on astrophysics and planetary science. Climate change and other global aspects of Earth's environment have been the focus of research by the GISS.

hurricane visible from space over land and water. the curve of the earth is visible

Expedition 68 NASA astronaut Bob Hines captured this view of Hurricane Ian on Sept. 28, 2022, which was also tracked by satellites managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. (Image credit: NASA)

Goddard's green initiative

Climate change, including sea rise, flooding and more extreme weather, can be mapped from the perspective of the Earth observation mission. The master plan was approved in 2022. The plan aims to reduce the square footage of its buildings by 25% in the next 15 years, which will result in the removal of 1.2 million square feet from the main campus by 2038.

The main area that will be removed is a 100 acres that used to be used for propellant research. NASA said in an update that most of the work on propellants is going to other NASA centers or to the commercial industry.

"Our climate and our environment are extremely important to NASA, but even more so to us at Goddard, where so much of the agency's Earth science research takes place," said the associate center director. As the Area 400 site is dispositioned, it is our hope that environmental considerations will be given the highest priority.

The environmental focus includes energy-efficient construction, putting in green space and place of paved areas, and adding elevated and more robust infrastructure along the coast at Wallops, which is finding itself battered by storms and rising oceans.

A focus on energy management, water efficiency and other factors are included in the newer buildings that are constructed to the standards of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. Managing its facilities or operating its programs are some of the metrics that are included insustainability atgoddard

The priorities for the environment at Wallops are air quality, natural and cultural resources, site restoration, sustainable and environmental planning.

Additional resources

You can take a virtual tour of the control center. There is a plan for a weaving trajectory for the Lucy spaceship.

References

There is a plane called Boeing. There will be a new year in2022. There is a Delta rocket page on theboeing.com.

There is a space agency called NASA. The NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies can be found at www.giss.nasa.gov.

There is a space agency called NASA. There is a scientific visualization studio on the NASA website.

There is a space agency called NASA. There was a report on Sept. 21. "Wallops Island - 60 Years of Exploration" can be found at www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/everydaylife/wallops_60th.html

There is a space agency called NASA. A year ago. The annual report for the Goddard Space Flight Center can be found at www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files

There is a space agency called NASA. The year ends on May 15. There is a tracking and data relay satellite.

There is a space agency called NASA. February 16,2022 The master plan for NASA'sgoddard space flight center received approval.

There is a space agency called NASA. The year ends on May 26th. TheHubble Space Telescope: Mission Operations is a virtual tour.

There is a space agency called NASA. September 30th. The "goddard space flight center" is on the NASA website.

NASA has a space studies institute. October 10 was the date of the next event. "About GISS." can be found on the website at www.giss.nasa.gov.

There is a space flight center. There is a system for medical and environmental management.

There is a space flight center. The date is March 11. The "Mechanical Systems Division" can be found on the NASA.gov website.

NASA uploaded a video to its website. There is a new year on January 13th. The "Lucy Mission Overview: Journey to Explore the Trojan Asteroids" is available on the internet.

The man is Alfred Rosenthal. The year 1968 In the early years of the space flight center, there was a venture into space. The NASA website has a history ofSP 4301.

There is space in Virginia. There will be a new year in2022. "Welcome to Virginia Space" can be found on the website.

Wallace is a person named Lane. A decade ago. Dreams, hopes and realities. There is a new tab on the NASA.gov website.