History of Goddard Space Flight Center

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Aerial view of Goddard
Agency overview
Formed	March 1, 1959
Jurisdiction	Federal government of the United States
Headquarters	Greenbelt, MD

Main article: Goddard Space Flight Center

Goddard Space Flight Center is NASA's first, and oldest, space center. It is named after Dr. Robert H. Goddard, the father of modern rocketry.

Origin of GSFC

Photo from the opening day ceremony of the Goddard Space Flight Center on March 16, 1961.

On July 29, 1958, President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, establishing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. When it began operations on October 1, 1958, NASA consisted mainly of the four laboratories and some 80 employees of the government's 46-year-old research agency, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA).

GSFC was established on May 1, 1959 as NASA's first space flight center.

Its original charter was to perform five major functions on behalf of NASA: technology development and fabrication, planning, scientific research, technical operations, and project management. Even today, the Center is organized into several Directorates, each charged with one of these key functions.

Role of GSFC

Until May 1, 1959, NASA's presence in Greenbelt, Maryland was known as the Beltsville Space Center. It was then renamed the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), after Dr. Robert H. Goddard, the father of modern rocketry. Its first 157 employees transferred from the United States Navy's Project Vanguard missile program, but continued their work at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. while the Center was under construction.

History

1960 - 1970

Goddard Space Flight Center contributed to Project Mercury, America's first manned space flight program. The Center assumed a lead role for the project in its early days and managed the first 250 employees involved in the effort, who were stationed at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. However, the size and scope of Project Mercury soon prompted NASA to build a new "Manned Spacecraft Center", now the Johnson Space Center, in Houston, Texas. Project Mercury's personnel and activities were transferred there in 1961.

1980 - 1990

Goddard Space Flight Center remained involved in the manned space flight program, providing computer support and radar tracking of flights through a worldwide network of ground stations called the Spacecraft Tracking and Data Acquisition Network (STDN). However, the Center focused primarily on designing unmanned satellites and spacecraft for scientific research missions. Goddard pioneered several fields of spacecraft development, including modular spacecraft design, which reduced costs and made it possible to repair satellites in orbit. Goddard's Solar Max satellite, launched in 1980, was repaired by astronauts on the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1984.

1990 - 2000

The Hubble Space Telescope, launched in 1990, remains in service and continues to grow in capability thanks to its modular design and multiple servicing missions by the Space Shuttle.

2000 - present

Today, the Center remains involved in each of NASA's key programs. Goddard has developed more instruments for planetary exploration than any other organization, among them scientific instruments sent to every planet in the Solar System. The Center's contribution to the Earth Science Enterprise includes several spacecraft in the Earth Observing System fleet as well as EOSDIS, a science data collection, processing, and distribution system. For the manned space flight program, Goddard develops tools for use by astronauts during extra-vehicular activity, and built and operates the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and the Solar Dynamics Observatory.

Major accomplishments

Missions

See Goddard Missions

COBE

The Nobel Prize in Physics for 2006 was jointly awarded to John C. Mather, a civil servant at GSFC, and George F. Smoot, University of California, Berkeley, "for their discovery of the blackbody form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation." This discovery was made possible by the Cosmic Background Explorer's (COBE) measurement of the Cosmic background radiation. Mather and Smoot were the science principal co-investigators for the COBE mission, which was built and managed by GSFC. According to the Nobel Prize committee, "the COBE-project can also be regarded as the starting point for cosmology as a precision science".

People

Notable scientists and engineers from GSFC include:

• John C. Mather - an American astrophysicist, cosmologist and Nobel Prize in Physics laureate for his work on COBE with George Smoot.
• James E. Hansen - The head the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, an adjunct professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University. He is best known for his research in the field of climatology, his testimony on climate change to congressional committees in 1988 that helped raise broad awareness of global warming, and his advocacy of action to limit the impacts of climate change.
• Orlando Figueroa - the Director, Applied Engineering & Technology at the NASA GSFC (as the "Director of Engineering" he manages the full scope of engineering activities at Goddard), previously the NASA Mars Czar Director for Mars Exploration and the Director for the Solar System Division in the Office of Space Science at NASA Headquarters
• Marc Kuchner
• Gene Carl Feldman
• Robert Bindschadler
• Fred Espenak - an American astrophysicist, best known for his work on eclipse predictions
• Amri Hernandez-Pellerano
• Lissette Martinez

Center Directors

Reference for table

#	Director	Start	End	Term length	Started with NASA	Notable accomplishments
11	Robert Strain	August 4, 2008	Present	Present	2008
	Arthur F. "Rick" Obenschain (Acting)	May 7, 2008	August 3, 2008	~3 months
10	Dr. Edward J. Weiler	August 2, 2004	May 6, 2008	4 years	1978
9	Alphonso (Al) V. Diaz	January 12, 1998	August 2, 2004	6 years	1964
8	Joseph H. Rothenberg	October 4, 1995	January 12, 1998	3 years	1983	Former Associate Administrator for Human Space Flight, NASA HQ Former President, Universal Space Network, Inc.
	Joseph H. Rothenberg (Acting)	April 30, 1995	October 4, 1995
7	Dr. John M. Klineberg	July 1, 1990	April 29, 1995	5 years	25 years total	Former Center Director, NASA Glenn Research Center, Ohio Former Deputy Associate Administrator for Aeronautics and Space Technology, NASA HQ Former CEO, Space Systems/Loral, California
6	Dr. John W. Townsend, Jr.	June 22, 1987	June 30, 1990	3 years	1958
5	Dr. Noel W. Hinners	June 14, 1982	June 22, 1987	5 years	1972	Former Associate Administrator for Space Science, NASA HQ Former Director, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Former Senior Vice President, Lockheed Martin
4	Dr. A. Thomas Young	February 1, 1980	March 22, 1982	3 years	12 years total
	Robert (Ed) Smylie (Acting Director)	June 2, 1979	January 31, 1980
3	Dr. Robert S. Cooper	July 1, 1976	June 1, 1979	3 years	1975	Assistant secretary of defense and director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (1981–1985, during the Reagan administration's Star Wars initiative)
2	Dr. John F. Clark	May 5, 1965	July 1, 1976	11 years	1965
1	Dr. Harry J. Goett	September 1, 1959	July 1965	6 years	1959