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From the dawn of space exploration to current and ongoing missions, you can get an up-close, hands-on feel for the story of humans in space. Fuel your quest for inspiration right here. Plan your trip with features such as maps, FAQ's, favorites and detailed descriptions of shows and attractions.
The United States prided itself on being at the forefront of technology, and, embarrassed, immediately began developing a response, signaling the start of the U. In December, America attempted to launch a satellite of its own, called Vanguard , but it exploded shortly after takeoff. On January 31, , things went better with Explorer I , the first U. In May , President John F. Kennedy declared that America should put a man on the moon by the end of the decade.
NASA has continued to make great advances in space exploration since the first moonwalk, including playing a major part in the construction of the International Space Station. The agency has also suffered tragic setbacks, however, such as the disasters that killed the crews of the Challenger space shuttle in and the Columbia space shuttle in But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us!
Under Hitler, the Nazi Party grew into a mass movement and ruled Germany as a totalitarian state from to By the beginning of , The Doors were well-established members of the Los Angeles music scene. As the house band at the Whiskey a Go Go on the Sunset Strip, they had built a large local following and strong industry buzz, and out on the road, they were fast becoming known as a Edward J.
They went to work there because they were fired up with excitement over the prospect of exploring a frontier no human had entered before. Goddard also manages a suite of ground stations in other locations around the globe for tracking, commanding and acquiring data from NASA spacecraft.
The center is tasked with developing ways to archive and distribute the scientific data accumulated from the many missions it supports. The center has built and operated more research satellites dedicated to the study of our home planet than any other institution in the world and also develops instruments that are flown aboard spacecraft operated by other nations and other federal agencies.
Laboratories that develop sophisticated scientific instruments flown aboard satellites are a key Goddard feature. Vacuum chambers, shaker tables, acoustic test cells and a High Capacity Centrifuge allow satellite structures to be subjected to environmental conditions that mimic those encountered in actual spaceflight.
Satellite Control Centers are distributed across the center to track and maintain the spacecraft and instruments for 43 ongoing satellite missions. A separate control center in Baltimore, Md. Goddard scientists and engineers are currently working with teams of astronauts at the Johnson Space Center to plan the shuttle flight to maintain and repair the telescope in the late summer of , including the specific tasks to be performed by spacewalking astronauts.
Goddard is also home to one of the largest clean rooms used in the space program. Clean rooms help keep fingerprints, dust and other airborne contaminants away from sensitive instruments. The facility uses five huge fans that provide pure air and an environment where large satellites undergo final test and assembly and space shuttle payloads can be prepared for shipment to launching sites.
Tiny microelectronic devices are assembled and semiconductors are processed in a development laboratory at Goddard. LRO will provide critical information about the moon to help NASA select safe landing sites with compelling exploration and scientific features.
Goddard will be responsible for Radio Frequency RF engineering, including communications and tracking, for Constellation. Goddard also provides support in the areas of radiation engineering, attitude control system modeling and systems engineering spanning communications, avionics, flight performance, safety and mission assurance.
Goddard also has been given responsibility for communications, tracking and data handling for the Orion crew exploration vehicle. Begun in by Dr. Robert Jastrow to conduct basic research in space sciences in support of Goddard programs, GISS now emphasizes a broad study of global climate change. James E. At the institute, scientists across a wide range of disciplines study natural and human-caused changes in our environment that occur on various time scales from decades to millennia and that affect the habitability of our planet.
The facility also manages and performs cutting-edge research in the field of software engineering primarily as it relates to software safety, quality, verification and validation testability, and reliability.
The current director of the facility is Dr. Butch Caffall. In , students at what was then the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory, part of the California Institute of Technology under the direction of Theodore von Karman, began to conduct experiments with liquid-propellant rocket engines in the Arroyo Seco just outside of Pasadena.
The U. Army subsequently helped Caltech acquire land in the Arroyo Seco to build testing facilities for rockets that lifted heavily laden airplanes into the air. The facility was reorganized in as the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and focused on research and development tests of guided missiles and other explosives.
JPL was transferred from the U. The laboratory is currently directed by Dr. Charles Elachi. The oldest original building still standing at JPL is no. Other original buildings used in the first rocket test programs remain in use. A series of laboratories used in space activities were constructed at JPL in the s.
JPL has managed and operated nearly every major U. These include the early Ranger and Surveyor lunar probes; the Mariner series of spacecraft that flew past Venus and Mars in the s; the Viking landers, which made the first successful U.
The center also managed the hearty Mars Sojourner rover and the twin Mars Rovers Spirit and Opportunity, which landed on the Red Planet in and are still roaming and exploring its surface; the orbiting Mars Surveyor and Mars Climate Orbiter, which have snapped hundreds of thousands of high-resolution images of the planet from orbit; the Magellan and Galileo space probes; and many more advanced planetary exploration spacecraft.
JPL is responsible for systems engineering in support of the Constellation Program. In addition, JPL will provide support to the Orion crew exploration vehicle thermal protection system advanced development project. Johnson Space Center. Included in the sprawling Johnson campus are buildings designed to support the training of the U. Highly utilized by these individuals is the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility, which houses full-size realistic mockups of the space shuttle flight deck and mid-deck, a full-size shuttle fuselage mockup, and mockups of various modules of the space station.
Located within the mockup facility are two tools used in the development and evaluation of spacewalk equipment and techniques: a precision air-bearing floor and a partial gravity simulator. To further prepare for spacewalks, astronauts train at the Sonny Carter Training Facility, located a few miles from the center. This neutral buoyancy laboratory features a pool containing 6. Astronauts also spend hours in the Jake Garn Training Facility where they prepare for launch, landing, payload and space station operations, and rendezvous activities by training with motion-based simulators imitating the vibrations, noise and views experienced by crews on orbit.
Astronauts receive spaceflight readiness training in T Talon supersonic jets, and pilot astronauts train with specially modified jet aircraft to mimic the approach and landing of shuttle orbiters. As part of their training, astronaut crews work closely with the teams of the Mission Control Center. From liftoff until the crew returns to Earth, the MCC serves as the nucleus of communication and support.
Starting with the Gemini IV spacewalking mission, teams of experienced engineers and technicians in Houston have controlled every flight for the Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, Apollo-Soyuz Test Project and space shuttle programs and operations aboard the International Space Station.
The original MCC configuration of two identical Mission Operations Control Rooms located on separate floors was modified and enhanced in the s, resulting in flight control rooms with capabilities to simultaneously support a space station Expedition crew and a shuttle crew in flight. On Nov. Other Johnson facilities contain a treasure trove of pounds of lunar materials returned from the moon between and These lunar samples continue to be studied today by scientists from around the world.
Along with the lunar samples, the office maintains four other collections of extraterrestrial samples, including meteorites from Antarctica, cosmic dust collected in the stratosphere, solar wind samples collected by the Genesis spacecraft, and interstellar and cometary dust samples collected during the recent Stardust mission.
To support human spaceflight, teams at Johnson help with the management and development, testing, production and delivery of all U. Projects developed at Johnson have produced scientific and medical advances, as well as spaceflight technologies that were adapted to benefit humankind in applications for medicine, energy, transportation, agriculture, communications and electronics. Pea soup - The space shuttle Challenger moves through the fog down the 3-mile crawler way en route to Launch Pad 39A and its first launch in April Kennedy Space Center is the primary U.
From to , the center launched nine Apollo flights to the moon. It is adjacent to the U. Kennedy, home to nearly 15, civilian, military and industry employees, features a large visitor center complex that includes museum-quality exhibits, shops, restaurants, a space shuttle experience and an IMAX theater.
A Saturn V rocket is also housed for public display at the visitor center. The center has a unique designation as a wildlife sanctuary, where bald eagles, alligators, herons and other wildlife coexist with humans.
The first U. On that area, the agency built new buildings and launch complexes to support the Saturn V launch vehicle and Apollo spacecraft.
Launch Complex 39, consisting of two nearly identical launch pads, A and B, was constructed, with space reserved for a third such Saturn V pad had it been needed. A launch control center was built where controllers monitored the countdown for each Saturn launch. To assemble each of the moon-bound launch vehicles, the foot tall VAB was erected. Inside the structure, the three stages of the Saturn V, along with the Apollo spacecraft, were assembled and stacked on top of a mobile launch platform.
The last Saturn V was launched in May , carrying the Skylab space station to orbit, the only use of the Saturn V as a cargo-carrying space launch vehicle.
Using a modified version of the Saturn V pads, the smaller Saturn IB rocket was used from to launch the three Skylab crews and the American astronauts who participated in the U. For the space shuttle program, Kennedy made modifications to or retained its Apollo-era facilities, including launch Complex 39 A and B and the interior high bays of the VAB, the mobile launching platform and slow-moving crawler transporter. The space shuttle Enterprise was used as a prototype vehicle to test the launch pad modifications, paving the way for the first space shuttle launch in April Kennedy added other buildings to support shuttle flight operations, including new orbiter processing facilities, which act as hangars for the winged vehicles, as well as payload and ordinance buildings for the shuttles and their booster rockets and cargoes.
A unique , sq. Space Station Processing Facility was constructed in to process and test large modules, truss segments, solar panels, etc. Kennedy launches many scientific and weather spacecraft into orbit aboard various expendable launch vehicles such as Delta, Atlas, Pegasus, Taurus, Titan and Athena class rockets.
The two Saturn V-turned-shuttle launch pads will be converted again, this time to support the new crewed Ares I and cargo-carrying Ares V launch vehicles. Kennedy will handle ground processing and launch operations of the Ares rockets and recovery of the Orion crew exploration vehicle capsules and recovery of the first-stage solids of the Ares I and Ares V vehicles.
The first test flight launch of an Ares I launch vehicle is planned for early , with the renewal of human launches to the moon from Kennedy slated to begin by
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