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An aerial photograph of the NASA Goddard Visitor Center, with white and brick rectangular buildings peeking out from among dense green trees behind a tall white rocket. The rocket stands in the center of a tan paved circle and is shaped like a pencil with a long, slim tower and a slight bulge at the top. Several smaller red, white, and yellow rockets are displayed on their sides around the paved circle, with another rocket standing in a smaller, white paved circle near the trees.

A view looking down at Nithin Abraham studies a paint sample in her laboratory.

The Webb Telescope's mirror being tested at Goddard Space Flight Center.

Goddard Space Flight Center

Goddard is NASA’s premiere space flight complex and home to the nation’s largest organization of scientists, engineers, and technologists who build spacecraft, instruments, and new technology to study Earth, the Sun, our solar system, and the universe.

Learn More About Goddard

Location

Greenbelt, Maryland

Founded

May 1, 1959

People

10,000+

Director

Dr. Makenzie Lystrup

Latest Goddard News

See All Goddard News

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NASA Scientific Balloon Flights to Lift Off From Antarctica

Scientists Share Early Results from NASA’s Solar Eclipse Experiments

NASA Awards Contract for NOAA’s Next Generation Space Weather Program

Visit Goddard

Explore exhibits of spacecraft and technology at the Goddard Visitor Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

A child spreads their arms in front of a large screen.

Focus Areas and Capabilities

Goddard plays a pivotal role across all aspects of NASA missions, from development to de-orbit.

North and South America at nigh

Earth and Climate

Image of the Sun with a solar flare escaping from the side.

The Sun

Artist illustration of Jupiter partially shaded.

The Solar System

an undulating, translucent star-forming region in the Carina Nebula is shown in this Webb image, hued in ambers and blues; foreground stars with diffraction spikes can be seen, as can a speckling of background points of light through the cloudy nebula

The Universe

Vivek Dwivedi's ALD test chamber - technology

Technology Development

The Antares rocket lifting off Pad 0A, a plume of white smoke underneath.

Launch Range

Latest Videos from Goddard

Check our more videos on Goddard YouTube

People of Goddard

More Goddard People

Carissa Arillo: Testing Spacecraft, Penning the Owner’s Manuals

Systems Engineer Noosha Haghani Prepped PACE for Space

Kyle Helson Finds EXCITE-ment in Exoplanet Exploration

Childhood Snow Days Transformed Linette Boisvert into a Sea Ice Scientist

Rob Gutro: Clear Science in the Forecast

Aaron Vigil Helps Give SASS to Roman Space Telescope

History of Goddard Space Flight Center

Pioneering spaceflight and innovation

Named for American rocketry pioneer Dr. Robert H. Goddard, the center was established May 1, 1959, as NASA's first space flight complex.

Dr. Robert Hutchings Goddard (1882-1945) is considered the father of modern rocket propulsion. A physicist of great insight, Goddard also had a unique genius for invention. It is in memory of this brilliant scientist that NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, was established on May 1, 1959.

Black and white image of Dr. Robert Goddard and other colleagues all holding a large rocket.

Dr. Robert Goddard, second from right, and colleagues hold up a rocket prior to a flight in New Mexico on April 19, 1932.

Goddard Space Flight Center

26 Images

Goddard Facilities

Goddard Institute for Space Studies

Wallops Flight Facility

Katherine Johnson IV&V Facility

White Sands Test Facility

Scientific balloon, which is a clear, upside down teardrop shade, with a long tube leading to it being used to inflate it.

Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility

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