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By NASA
6 Min Read NASA Marshall Reflects on 65 Years of Ingenuity, Teamwork
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, is celebrating its 65-year legacy of ingenuity and service to the U.S. space program – and the expansion of its science, engineering, propulsion, and human spaceflight portfolio with each new decade since the NASA field center opened its doors on July 1, 1960.
What many Americans likely call to mind are the “days of smoke and fire,” said Marshall Director Joseph Pelfrey, referring to the work conducted at Marshall to enable NASA’s launch of the first Mercury-Redstone rocket and the Saturn V which lifted Americans to the Moon, the inaugural space shuttle mission, and the shuttle flights that carried the Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra X-ray Observatory, and elements of the International Space Station to orbit. Most recently, he said they’re likely to recall the thunder of NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System), rising into the sky during Artemis I.
NASA’s Space Launch System, carrying the Orion spacecraft, launches on the Artemis I flight test on Nov. 16, 2022. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, led development and oversees all work on the new flagship rocket, building on its storied history of propulsion and launch vehicle design dating back to the Redstone and Saturn rockets. The most powerful rocket ever built, SLS is the backbone of NASA’s Artemis program, set to carry explorers back to the Moon in 2026, help establish a permanent outpost there, and make possible new, crewed journeys to Mars in the years to come.NASA/Bill Ingalls Yet all the other days are equally meaningful, Pelfrey said, highlighting a steady stream of milestones reflecting the work of Marshall civil service employees, contractors, and industry partners through the years – as celebrated in a new “65 Years of Marshall” timeline.
“The total sum of hours, contributed by tens of thousands of men and women across Marshall’s history, is incalculable,” Pelfrey said. “Together they’ve blended legacy with innovation – advancing space exploration and scientific discovery through collaboration, engineering excellence, and technical solutions. They’ve invented and refined technologies that make it possible to safely live and work in space, to explore other worlds, and to help safeguard our own.
The total sum of hours, contributed by tens of thousands of men and women across Marshall’s history, is incalculable.
Joseph Pelfrey
Marshall Space Flight Center Director
“Days of smoke and fire may be the most visible signs, but it’s the months and years of preparation and the weeks of post-launch scientific discovery that mark the true dedication, sacrifice, and monumental achievements of this team.”
Reflecting on Marshall history
Marshall’s primary task in the 1960s was the development and testing of the rockets that carried the first American astronaut to space, and the much larger and more technically complex Saturn rocket series, culminating in the mighty Saturn V, which carried the first human explorers to the Moon’s surface in 1969.
“Test, retest, and then fly – that’s what we did here at the start,” said retired engineer Harry Craft, who was part of the original U.S. Army rocket development team that moved from Fort Bliss, Texas, to Huntsville to begin NASA’s work at Marshall. “And we did it all without benefit of computers, working out the math with slide rules and pads of paper.”
The 138-foot-long first stage of the Saturn V rocket is lowered to the ground following a successful static test firing in fall 1966 at the S-1C test stand at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The Saturn V, developed and managed at Marshall, was a multi-stage, multi-engine launch vehicle that stood taller than the Statue of Liberty and lofted the first Americans to the Moon. Its success helped position Marshall as an aerospace leader in propulsion, space systems, and launch vehicle development.NASA “Those were exciting times,” retired test engineer Parker Counts agreed. He joined Marshall in 1963 to conduct testing of the fully assembled and integrated Saturn first stages. It wasn’t uncommon for work weeks to last 10 hours a day, plus weekend shifts when deadlines were looming.
Counts said Dr. Wernher von Braun, Marshall’s first director, insisted staff in the design and testing organizations be matched with an equal number of engineers in Marshall’s Quality and Reliability Assurance Laboratory.
“That checks-and-balances engineering approach led to mission success for all 32 of the Saturn family of rockets,” said Counts, who went on to support numerous other propulsion programs before retiring from NASA in 2003.
“We worked with the best minds and best equipment available, pushing the technology every day to deliver the greatest engineering achievement of the 20th century,” said instrumentation and electronics test engineer Willie Weaver, who worked at Marshall from 1960 to 1988 – and remains a tour guide at its visitor center, the U.S. Space & Rocket Center.
We worked with the best minds and best equipment available, pushing the technology every day to deliver the greatest engineering achievement of the 20th century.
Willie Weaver
Former Marshall Space Flight Center Employee
The 1970s at Marshall were a period of transition and expanded scientific study, as NASA ended the Apollo Program and launched the next phase of space exploration. Marshall provided critical work on the first U.S. space station, Skylab, and led propulsion element development and testing for NASA’s Space Shuttle Program.
Marshall retiree Jim Odom, a founding engineer who got his start launching NASA satellites in the run-up to Apollo, managed the Space Shuttle External Tank project. The role called for weekly trips to NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, which has been managed by Marshall since NASA acquired the government facility in 1961. The shuttle external tanks were manufactured in the same bays there where NASA and its contractors built the Saturn rockets.
This photograph shows the liquid hydrogen tank and liquid oxygen tank for the Space Shuttle external tank (ET) being assembled in the weld assembly area of the Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF). The ET provides liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen to the Shuttle’s three main engines during the first eight 8.5 minutes of flight. At 154-feet long and more than 27-feet in diameter, the ET is the largest component of the Space Shuttle, the structural backbone of the entire Shuttle system, and the only part of the vehicle that is not reusable. The ET is manufactured at the Michoud Assembly Facility near New Orleans, Louisiana, by the Martin Marietta Corporation under management of the Marshall Space Flight Center.NASA “We didn’t have cellphones or telecon capabilities yet,” Odom recalled. “I probably spent more time with the pilot of the twin-engine plane in those days than I did with my wife.”
Marshall’s shuttle propulsion leadership led to the successful STS-1 mission in 1981, launching an era of orbital science exemplified by NASA’s Spacelab program.
“Spacelab demonstrated that NASA could continue to achieve things no one had ever done before,” said Craft, who served as mission manager for Spacelab 1 in 1983 – a highlight of his 40-year NASA career. “That combination of science, engineering, and global partnership helped shape our goals in space ever since.”
Engineers in the X-ray Calibration Facility at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, work to integrate elements of the Chandra X-ray Observatory in this March 1997 photo. Chandra was lifted to orbit by space shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999, the culmination of two decades of telescope optics, mirror, and spacecraft development and testing at Marshall. In the quarter century since, Chandra has delivered nearly 25,000 detailed observations of neutron stars, supernova remnants, black holes, and other high-energy objects, some as far as 13 billion light-years distant. Marshall continues to manage the program for NASA. NASA Bookended by the successful Hubble and Chandra launches, the 1990s also saw Marshall deliver the first U.S. module for the International Space Station, signaling a transformative new era of human spaceflight.
Odom, who retired in 1989 as associate administrator for the space station at NASA Headquarters, reflects on his three-decade agency career with pride.
“It was a great experience, start to finish, working with the teams in Huntsville and New Orleans and our partners nationwide and around the globe, meeting each new challenge, solving the practical, day-to-day engineering and technology problems we only studied about in college,” he said.
Shrouded for transport, a 45-foot segment of the International Space Station’s “backbone” truss rolls out of test facilities at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, in July 2000, ready to be flown to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for launch. Marshall played a key role in the development, testing, and delivery of the truss and other critical space station modules and structural elements, as well as the station’s air and water recycling systems and science payload hardware. Marshall’s Payload Operations Integration Center also continues to lead round-the-clock space station science. NASA That focus on human spaceflight solutions continued into the 21st century. Marshall delivered additional space station elements and science hardware, refined its air and water recycling systems, and led round-the-clock science from the Payload Operations Integration Center. Marshall scientists also managed the Gravity Probe Band Hinode missions and launched NASA’s SERVIR geospatial observation system. Once primary space stationconstruction – and the 40-year shuttle program – concluded in the 2010s, Marshall took on oversight of NASA’s Space Launch System, led James Webb Space Telescope mirror testing, and delivered the orbiting Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer.
As the 2020s continue, Marshall meets each new challenge with enthusiasm and expertise, preparing for the highly anticipated Artemis II crewed launch and a host of new science and discovery missions – and buoyed by strong industry partners and by the Huntsville community, which takes pride in being home to “Rocket City USA.”
“Humanity is on an upward, outward trajectory,” Pelfrey said. “And day after day, year after year, Marshall is setting the course to explore beyond tomorrow’s horizon.”
Read more about Marshall and its 65-year history:
https://www.nasa.gov/marshall
Hannah Maginot
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256-544-0034
hannah.l.maginot@nasa.gov
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By NASA
Jonathan Gardner of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, was selected as a 2023 Fellow of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) for extraordinary achievement and service. He is being recognized for exceptional community service and scientific leadership of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope science teams, leading to Webb’s flight hardware exceeding all of its requirements.
Dr. Jonathan Gardner is the Deputy Senior Project Scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.Credits: Courtesy of Jonathan Gardner Gardner is the deputy senior project scientist for the Webb telescope in Goddard’s Astrophysics Science Division. Webb, which launched Dec. 25, 2021, is the largest, most powerful, and most complex space science telescope ever built. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency.
John Mather, senior project scientist on Webb and a senior astrophysicist at Goddard, nominated Gardner for the fellowship. In his nomination, Mather wrote:
“Jonathan Gardner is a quiet superstar, well known to the Webb community. As deputy senior project scientist for Webb, Gardner represents the senior project scientist in all aspects of the mission, with responsibility for ensuring Webb’s scientific performance. Gardner is a tireless advocate for the scientific vision and its accurate implementation. He is the main spokesperson for Webb science throughout NASA and in the wider astronomy community. He is the person most responsible for keeping the science teams working well together and for communicating with other astronomers.”
Gardner began working on Webb as a member of the Ad-Hoc Science Working Group in the late 1990s, joining the project as the deputy senior project scientist in 2002.
Beginning in 2002, Gardner organized all the meetings and communications of the Science Working Group, which included people from the U.S., Europe, and Canada, including instrument teams and other partners. He recruited Goddard scientists for the mission’s Project Science Team, and ensured a scientist was assigned to every engineering topic. Gardner also wrote and published the scientific requirements in a dedicated issue of Space Science Reviews. He set up the Science Requirements Analysis Board to review any potential threats to the scientific goals of the mission and worked with engineering teams to avoid any failures. He represented scientific interests throughout the engineering project and throughout NASA, by ensuring regular communication between scientists, managers, and engineers.
The 2023 AAS Fellows are recognized for enhancing and sharing humanity’s scientific understanding of the universe through personal achievement and extraordinary service to the astronomical sciences and to the AAS.
AAS, established in 1899, is a major international organization of professional astronomers, astronomy educators, and amateur astronomers. Its membership of approximately 8,000 also includes physicists, geologists, engineers, and others whose interests lie within the broad spectrum of subjects now comprising the astronomical sciences. The mission of the AAS is to enhance and share humanity’s scientific understanding of the universe as a diverse and inclusive astronomical community, which it achieves through publishing, meetings, science advocacy, education and outreach, and training and professional development.
For information about NASA and agency programs, visit: https://www.nasa.gov
By Robert Gutro
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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By NASA
In 2023, NASA Langley’s workforce brought imagination to reality with innovative technological development and a continued commitment to tackling some of the tough challenges that both NASA and the nation face.
NASA At NASA, we aspire to know more, dig deeper, climb higher and along the way we are asking, ‘What if?’,” said NASA Langley Center Director Clayton P. Turner in an introductory message to Langley’s 2023 Annual Report. “Our inquisitive nature propels us on our mission to reach for new heights and reveal the unknown for the benefit of humankind.”
All year, the Langley workforce pondered and planned for a future alongside self-flying drones, aircraft with reduced emissions, air travel that benefits from greater fuel efficiency and space exploration assisted by inflatable heat shields that could give us the ability to carry greater payloads than ever before.
“We invite you to explore all that NASA’s Langley Research Center has to offer — our amazing people, unique capabilities, and legacy of success,” Turner said in his introduction.
Use this link to explore the 2023 Annual Report for NASA’s Langley Research Center.
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By NASA
3 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
From left, NASA astronauts, Tracy C. Dyson, Mike Barratt, Matthew Dominick, and Jeanette Epps, who served as part of Expedition 71, will discuss their recent missions to the International Space Station during a visit to Marshall Space Flight Center on Jan. 29. NASA NASA will host four astronauts at 9 a.m. CDT Wednesday, Jan. 29, for a media opportunity at the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
NASA astronauts Matt Dominick, Mike Barratt, Jeanette Epps, and Tracy C. Dyson served as part of Expedition 71 and will discuss their recent missions to the International Space Station.
Dominick, Barratt, and Epps launched aboard NASA’s SpaceX Crew-8 mission in March 2024 and returned to Earth in October 2024 after spending nearly eight months aboard the orbiting complex. Dyson launched aboard a Roscosmos Soyuz spacecraft also in March 2024 and returned in September 2024 after completing a six-month research mission aboard the space station.
Media are invited to attend the event and visit with the astronauts as they discuss their science missions aboard the microgravity laboratory and other mission highlights. Media interested in participating must confirm their attendance by 12 p.m., Monday, Jan. 27, to both Lance D. Davis – lance.d.davis@nasa.gov – and Joel Wallace – joel.w.wallace@nasa.gov – in Marshall’s Office of Communications.
Media must arrive by 8 a.m., Wednesday, to the Redstone Arsenal Joint Visitor Control Center Gate 9 parking lot, located at the Interstate 565 interchange on Research Park Boulevard. The event will take place in the NASA Marshall Activities Building 4316. Vehicles are subject to a security search at the gate, so please allow extra time. All members of the media and drivers will need photo identification. Drivers will need proof of insurance if requested.
The Expedition 71 crew conducted hundreds of technology demonstrations and science experiments, including the bioprinting of human tissues. These higher-quality tissues printed in microgravity could help advance the production of organs and tissues for transplant and improve 3D printing of foods and medicines on future long-duration space missions. The crew also looked at neurological organoids, created with stem cells from patients to study neuroinflammation, a common feature of neurodegenerative conditions such as Parkinson’s disease. The organoids provided a platform to study these diseases and their treatments and could help address how extended spaceflight affects the brain.
As part of Crew-8, Dominick served as commander, Barratt served as pilot, and Epps served as a mission specialist. Dyson launched aboard a Soyuz space as part of an international crew and served as a flight engineer on a six-month research mission. The expedition to the space station was the first spaceflight for Dominick, third for Barratt, first for Epps, and third for Dyson.
The International Space Station is a convergence of science, technology, and human innovation that enables research not possible on Earth. For more than 24 years, NASA has supported a continuous human presence aboard the orbiting laboratory, through which astronauts have learned to live and work in space for extended periods of time. The space station is a springboard for developing a low Earth economy and NASA’s next great leaps in exploration, including missions to the Moon under Artemis and, ultimately, human
Learn more about the International Space Station, its research, and its crew, at:
https://www.nasa.gov/station
Lance D. Davis
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256-640-9065
lance.d.davis@nasa.gov
Joel Wallace
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256-786-0117
joel.w.wallace@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Jan 24, 2025 EditorBeth Ridgeway Related Terms
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