Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center is 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. It is also home to Hubble operations and a proving ground for the James Webb Space Telescope. Goddard manages communications between mission control and orbiting astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Goddard scientists stare into the Sun, grind up meteorites for signs of life's building blocks, look into the farthest reaches of space, and untangle the mysteries of our own changing world. Goddard engineers construct sensitive instruments, build telescopes that peer into the cosmos, and operate the test chambers that ensure those satellites' survival. Goddard and its several installations - Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Wallops Flight Facility, Katherine Johnson Independent Verification and Validation Facility, White Sands Complex, and Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility - are critical in carrying out NASA's missions of space exploration and scientific discovery.