The
Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (
JSC) is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's center for human spaceflight training, research and flight control. The center consists of a complex of 100 buildings constructed on 1,620 acres (656 ha) in Houston, Texas, USA. Johnson Space Center is home to the United States astronaut corps and is responsible for training astronauts from both the U.S. and its international partners. It is often popularly referred to by its central function during missions, "Mission Control".
The center, originally known as the
Manned Spacecraft Center, grew out of the
Space Task GroupThe Space Task Group was a working group of NASA engineers created in 1958, tasked with superintending America's manned spaceflight programs. It was headed by Robert Gilruth andbased at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. After President John F...
formed soon after the creation of NASA to co-ordinate the US manned spaceflight program. A new facility was constructed on land donated by
Rice UniversityWilliam Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University or Rice, is a private research university located on a heavily wooded campus in Houston, Texas, United States...
and opened in 1963. On February 19, 1973, the center was renamed in honor of the late U.S. president and Texas native,
Lyndon B. JohnsonLyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
. JSC is one of ten major NASA field centers.
History
Johnson Space Center has its origins in
legislation shepherded to enactment in 1958The National Aeronautics and Space Act is the United States federal statute that created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration . The Act, which followed close on the heels of the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik, was drafted by the United States House Select Committee on Astronautics...
by then-U.S. Senator Lyndon Johnson. The
Space Task GroupThe Space Task Group was a working group of NASA engineers created in 1958, tasked with superintending America's manned spaceflight programs. It was headed by Robert Gilruth andbased at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. After President John F...
STG was created on November 5, 1958 with
Langley Research CenterLangley Research Center is the oldest of NASA's field centers, located in Hampton, Virginia, United States. It directly borders Poquoson, Virginia and Langley Air Force Base...
engineers under the direction of Robert Gilruth, to direct
Project MercuryIn January 1960 NASA awarded Western Electric Company a contract for the Mercury tracking network. The value of the contract was over $33 million. Also in January, McDonnell delivered the first production-type Mercury spacecraft, less than a year after award of the formal contract. On February 12,...
and follow-on manned space programs. The STG originally reported to the
Goddard Space Flight CenterThe Goddard Space Flight Center is a major NASA space research laboratory established on May 1, 1959 as NASA's first space flight center. GSFC employs approximately 10,000 civil servants and contractors, and is located approximately northeast of Washington, D.C. in Greenbelt, Maryland, USA. GSFC,...
organization.
Apollo program
After President
John F. KennedyJohn Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
set the goal in 1961 to put a man on the
MoonThe Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
by the end of the decade, this group was assigned the responsibility to lead the Apollo Program, and it became clear Gilruth would need a larger organization, with new test facilities and research laboratories suitable to mount an expedition to the Moon. In August 1961, John F. Parsons, Associate Director of the Ames Research Center, was tasked with heading a site selection team. Requirements for the new site included the availability of water transport and an all-weather airport, proximity to a major telecommunications network, availability of established industrial workers and contractor support, an available supply of water, a mild climate permitting year-round outdoor work, and a culturally attractive community.
Houston was initially included because of the proximity to the US Army's 4700 acres (19 km²)
San Jacinto Ordnance DepotThe San Jacinto Ordnance Depot was a United States Army ammunition depot that supplied the Army and Navy during World War II and the Korean War, located on a 4,954-acre reservation on the Houston Ship Channel 15 miles south of Houston, Texas....
located on the
Houston Ship ChannelThe Houston Ship Channel, located in Houston, Texas, is part of the Port of Houston—one of the United States's busiest seaports. The channel is the conduit for ocean-going vessels between the Houston-area shipyards and the Gulf of Mexico.-Overview:...
, and two nearby universities: the
University of HoustonThe University of Houston is a state research university, and is the flagship institution of the University of Houston System. Founded in 1927, it is Texas's third-largest university with nearly 40,000 students. Its campus spans 667 acres in southeast Houston, and was known as University of...
, and
Rice UniversityWilliam Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University or Rice, is a private research university located on a heavily wooded campus in Houston, Texas, United States...
. The land for the new facility was donated by Rice University and was situated in an undeveloped area 25 miles (40.2 km) southeast of Houston near
Galveston BayGalveston Bay is a large estuary located along the upper coast of Texas in the United States. It is connected to the Gulf of Mexico and is surrounded by sub-tropic marshes and prairies on the mainland. The water in the Bay is a complex mixture of sea water and fresh water which supports a wide...
.
On September 19, 1961, NASA Administrator
James E. WebbJames Edwin Webb was an American government official who served as the second administrator of NASA from February 14, 1961 to October 7, 1968....
announced the conversion of the Space Task Group into the new Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) to be located at the Houston site. Immediately after Webb's announcement, Gilruth and his staff began planning the move from Langley to Houston, using what would grow to 295996 ft2 of leased office and laboratory space in 11 scattered sites. On November 1, the conversion of the Task Group to MSC became official.
Construction of the center, designed by
Charles LuckmanCharles Luckman was a businessman and an American architect, famous as the "Boy Wonder of American Business" when he was named president of the Pepsodent toothpaste company in 1939 at the age of thirty...
, began in April 1962, and Gilruth's new organization was formed and moved to the temporary locations by September. That month, Kennedy gave a speech at Rice University on the US space program. The speech is famous for highlighting the Apollo program, but Kennedy also made reference to the new Center:
The 1620 acres (6.6 km²) facility was officially opened for business in September 1963. The facility was to be the primary flight control center for all subsequent U.S. manned space missions from
Project GeminiProject Gemini was the second human spaceflight program of NASA, the civilian space agency of the United States government. Project Gemini was conducted between projects Mercury and Apollo, with ten manned flights occurring in 1965 and 1966....
forward. The MSC's Mission Control Center first became operational for the flight of
Gemini 4Gemini 4 was the second manned space flight in NASA's Project Gemini, occurring in June 1965. It was the tenth manned American spaceflight . Astronauts James McDivitt and Edward H. White, II circled the Earth 66 times in four days, making it the first US flight to approach the five-day flight of...
in June 1965.
In addition to housing NASA's astronaut operations, JSC is also the site of the former
Lunar Receiving LaboratoryThe Lunar Receiving Laboratory was a facility at NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center that was constructed to quarantine astronauts and material brought back from the Moon during the Apollo program to mitigate the risk of back-contamination...
, where the first astronauts returning from the
moonThe Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
were
quarantineQuarantine is compulsory isolation, typically to contain the spread of something considered dangerous, often but not always disease. The word comes from the Italian quarantena, meaning forty-day period....
d, and where the majority of lunar samples are stored. The center's Landing and Recovery Division operated
MV RetrieverMotor Vessel Retriever was a World War II-era tank landing craft transferred to NASA from the U.S. Navy. It was used to train United States astronauts for post-splashdown ocean recovery operations and water egress from their command modules during the Gemini and Apollo programs from 1963 into the...
in the Gulf of Mexico for Gemini and Apollo astronauts to practice water egress after
splashdownSplashdown is the method of landing a spacecraft by parachute in a body of water. It was used by American manned spacecraft prior to the Space Shuttle program. It is also possible for the Russian Soyuz spacecraft and Chinese Shenzhou spacecraft to land in water, though this is only a contingency...
.
One of the artifacts displayed at Johnson Space Center is the
Saturn VThe Saturn V was an American human-rated expendable rocket used by NASA's Apollo and Skylab programs from 1967 until 1973. A multistage liquid-fueled launch vehicle, NASA launched 13 Saturn Vs from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida with no loss of crew or payload...
rocket. It is whole, except for the ring between the
S-ICThe S-IC was the first stage of the Saturn V rocket. The S-IC first stage was built by The Boeing Company. Like the first stages of most rockets, most of its mass of over two thousand metric tonnes at launch was propellant, in this case RP-1 rocket fuel and liquid oxygen oxidizer...
and S-II stages, and the fairing between the S-II and
S-IVBThe S-IVB was built by the Douglas Aircraft Company and served as the third stage on the Saturn V and second stage on the Saturn IB. It had one J-2 engine...
stages, and made of actual surplus flight-ready articles. It also has real (though incomplete)
ApolloThe Apollo spacecraft was composed of five combined parts designed to accomplish the American Apollo program's goal of landing astronauts on the Moon by the end of the 1960s and returning them safely to Earth...
command and service modules, intended to fly in the canceled Apollo 19 mission.
Space Shuttle program
In the wake of the January 28th, 1986
Space Shuttle Challenger disasterThe Space Shuttle Challenger disaster occurred on January 28, 1986, when Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, leading to the deaths of its seven crew members. The spacecraft disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of central Florida at 11:38 am EST...
, President
Ronald ReaganRonald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
and First Lady
Nancy ReaganNancy Davis Reagan is the widow of former United States President Ronald Reagan and was First Lady of the United States from 1981 to 1989....
traveled to JSC on January 31 to speak at a memorial service honoring the astronauts. It was attended by 6,000 NASA employees and 4,000 guests, as well as by the families of the crew. During the ceremony, an Air Force band led the singing of "God Bless America" as NASA
T-38 TalonThe Northrop T-38 Talon is a twin-engine supersonic jet trainer. It was the world's first supersonic trainer and is also the most produced. The T-38 remains in service as of 2011 in air forces throughout the world....
supersonic jets flew directly over the scene in the traditional missing-man formation. All activities were broadcast live by the national television and radio networks.
A similar memorial service was held at the Johnson Space Center on February 4, 2003 for the astronauts who perished in the
Space Shuttle Columbia disasterThe Space Shuttle Columbia disaster occurred on February 1, 2003, when shortly before it was scheduled to conclude its 28th mission, STS-107, the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas and Louisiana during re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere, resulting in the death of all seven crew members...
three days before, which was attended by President
George W. BushGeorge Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
and First Lady
Laura BushLaura Lane Welch Bush is the wife of the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush. She was the First Lady of the United States from January 20, 2001, to January 20, 2009. She has held a love of books and reading since childhood and her life and education have reflected that interest...
. Although that service was broadcast live by the national television and radio networks, it was mainly for the NASA family and for the families of the astronauts; the service that was for the nation was the one Vice-President Richard Cheney and his wife,
LynneLynne Ann Cheney is the wife of former United States Vice President Dick Cheney and served as the Second Lady of the United States from 2001 to 2009...
led at
Washington National CathedralThe Washington National Cathedral, officially named the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, is a cathedral of the Episcopal Church located in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. Of neogothic design, it is the sixth-largest cathedral in the world, the second-largest in...
two days later.
On April 20, 2007 a
hostage situationThe Johnson Space Center shooting was an incident of hostage taking that occurred on April 20, 2007 in Building 44, the Communication and Tracking Development Laboratory, at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, United States...
developed in Building 44, the Communication and Tracking Development Laboratory where a gunman killed one person, injured another, and took a hostage for over three hours until finally committing suicide.
On September 13, 2008
Hurricane IkeHurricane Ike was the second-costliest hurricane ever to make landfall in the United States, the costliest hurricane ever to impact Cuba and the second most active hurricane to reach the Canadian mainland in the Great Lakes Region after Hurricane Hazel in 1954...
hit Galveston as a Category 3 hurricane and caused minor damage to the Mission Control Center and other buildings at JSC. The storm damaged the roofs of several hangars for the
T-38 TalonThe Northrop T-38 Talon is a twin-engine supersonic jet trainer. It was the world's first supersonic trainer and is also the most produced. The T-38 remains in service as of 2011 in air forces throughout the world....
s at Ellington Field.
Facilities
The Johnson Space Center is home to Christopher C. Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center (MCC-H), the NASA control center that coordinates and monitors all human spaceflight for the United States. MCC-H directs all
Space ShuttleThe Space Shuttle was a manned orbital rocket and spacecraft system operated by NASA on 135 missions from 1981 to 2011. The system combined rocket launch, orbital spacecraft, and re-entry spaceplane with modular add-ons...
missions and activities aboard the
International Space StationThe International Space Station is a habitable, artificial satellite in low Earth orbit. The ISS follows the Salyut, Almaz, Cosmos, Skylab, and Mir space stations, as the 11th space station launched, not including the Genesis I and II prototypes...
. The Apollo Mission Control Center, a
National Historic LandmarkA National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
, is in Building 30. From the moment a manned spacecraft clears its launch tower until it lands back on Earth, it is in the hands of Mission Control. The MCC houses several Flight Control Rooms, from which
flight controllerFlight controllers are personnel who aid in the operations of a space flight, working in Mission Control Centers such as NASA's Mission Control Center, or ESA's Operations Center. Flight controllers sit at computer consoles and use telemetry to monitor in real time various technical aspects of a...
s coordinate and monitor the spaceflights. The rooms have many computer resources to monitor, command and communicate with spacecraft. When a mission is underway the rooms are staffed around the clock, usually in three shifts.
JSC handles most of the planning and training of the US astronaut corps and houses training facilities such as the Sonny Carter Training Facility and the
Neutral Buoyancy LaboratoryThe Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory is an astronaut training facility maintained by and located at the Sonny Carter Training Facility on NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. The NBL consists of a large indoor pool of water, the largest in the world, in which astronauts may perform simulated...
, a critical component in training astronauts for spacewalks. The Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory provides a controlled neutral
buoyancyIn physics, buoyancy is a force exerted by a fluid that opposes an object's weight. In a column of fluid, pressure increases with depth as a result of the weight of the overlying fluid. Thus a column of fluid, or an object submerged in the fluid, experiences greater pressure at the bottom of the...
environment—a very large pool containing about 6.2 million US gallons (23,000 m³) of water where astronauts train to practice
extra-vehicular activityExtra-vehicular activity is work done by an astronaut away from the Earth, and outside of a spacecraft. The term most commonly applies to an EVA made outside a craft orbiting Earth , but also applies to an EVA made on the surface of the Moon...
tasks while simulating zero-g conditions. The facility provides pre-flight training in becoming familiar with crew activities and with the dynamics of body motion under weightless conditions.
The center is also responsible for direction of operations at
White Sands Test FacilityWhite Sands Test Facility is a U.S. government rocket engine test facility and a resource for testing and evaluating potentially hazardous materials, space flight components, and rocket propulsion systems. NASA established WSTF on the White Sands Missile Range in 1963...
in
New MexicoNew Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
, which serves as a backup Shuttle landing site and would be the coordinating facility for the Constellation program, which was planned to replace the Space Shuttle program after 2010.
The visitor center has been the adjacent
Space Center HoustonSpace Center Houston is the official visitors' center of the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center—the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's center for human spaceflight activities—located in Houston...
since 1994; JSC Building 2 previously housed the visitor center.
The Johnson Space Center Heliport is located on the campus. Ronald C. Bailey manages the
heliportA heliport is a small airport suitable only for use by helicopters. Heliports typically contain one or more helipads and may have limited facilities such as fuel, lighting, a windsock, or even hangars...
.
Personnel and training
Approximately 3,200 civil servants, including 110
astronautAn astronaut or cosmonaut is a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft....
s, are employed at Johnson Space Center. The bulk of the workforce are the over 15,000
contractorsA general contractor is responsible for the day-to-day oversight of a construction site, management of vendors and trades, and communication of information to involved parties throughout the course of a building project.-Description:...
. Over 15 contracting firms work at JSC; the largest is the
United Space AllianceUnited Space Alliance is a spaceflight operations company. USA is a joint venture which was established in August 1995 as a Limited Liability Company , equally owned by Boeing and Lockheed Martin. The company is headquartered in Houston, Texas and, employed approximately 8,800 people in Texas,...
, which accounts for about 40 percent of the JSC employees. As of November 2005 the center's tenth director is former astronaut
Michael CoatsMichael Lloyd Coats is an engineer and former NASA astronaut, raised in Riverside, California...
, the first being Robert Gilruth.
NASA's astronaut training is conducted at the Johnson Space Center. Astronaut candidates receive training on shuttle systems and in the basic sciences which include mathematics, guidance and navigation, oceanography, orbital dynamics, astronomy, and physics. Candidates are required to complete military water survival prior to beginning their flying instruction. Candidates are also required to become
SCUBAScuba diving is a form of underwater diving in which a diver uses a scuba set to breathe underwater....
qualified for extravehicular training and are required to pass a swimming test. EVA training is conducted at the Sonny Carter Training Facility. Candidates are also trained to deal with emergencies associated with hyperbaric and hypobaric atmospheric pressures and are given exposure to the microgravity of space flight. Candidates maintain their flying proficiency by flying 15 hours per month in NASA's fleet of
T-38The Northrop T-38 Talon is a twin-engine supersonic jet trainer. It was the world's first supersonic trainer and is also the most produced. The T-38 remains in service as of 2011 in air forces throughout the world....
jets based at nearby
Ellington FieldEllington International Airport is a joint civil-military airport located in the U.S. state of Texas within the city of Houston— southeast of Downtown. Established by the Army Air Service on 21 May 1917, Ellington Field was one of the initial World War I Army Air Service installations when...
.
Additionally, candidates practice Orbiter landings in the
Shuttle Training AircraftThe Shuttle Training Aircraft is a NASA training vehicle that duplicates the Space Shuttle's approach profile and handling qualities, allowing Space Shuttle pilots to simulate Shuttle landings under controlled conditions before attempting the task on board the orbiter.-Development:The aircraft's...
.
The astronauts begin their formal training program during their year of candidate training by reading manuals and by taking computer-based training lessons on the various Orbiter systems. The training process includes practice with the single systems trainer where the astronauts are trained to operate each Orbiter system and to recognize malfunctions and perform corrective actions.
Following SST training, the astronauts begin training in the Shuttle Mission Simulators (SMSs). The SMS provides training of shuttle vehicle operations and systems tasks associated with the major flight phases. Astronauts begin their training in the SMS using training software until they are assigned to a particular mission. Astronauts also train with the flight controllers in the
Mission Control CenterA mission control center is an entity that manages aerospace vehicle flights, usually from the point of lift-off until the landing or the end of the mission. A staff of flight controllers and other support personnel monitor all aspects of the mission using telemetry, and send commands to the...
. The SMS and MCC are linked by computer in the same way the Orbiter and MCC are linked during an actual mission.
Research
Johnson Space Center leads NASA’s flight-related scientific and medical research programs. Technologies developed for spaceflight are now in use in many areas of medicine, energy, transportation, agriculture, communications and electronics.
The Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science (ARES) office performs the physical science research at the center. ARES directs and manages all functions and activities of the ARES scientists that perform basic research in earth, planetary, and space sciences. ARES scientists and engineers provide support to the human and robotic spaceflight programs. The responsibilities of ARES also include interaction with the Office of Safety and Mission Assurance and the Human Space Flight Programs.
Johnson Space Center was granted a five-year, $120-million extension of its agreement with the National Space Biomedical Research Institute at
Baylor College of MedicineBaylor College of Medicine, located in the Texas Medical Center in Houston, Texas, USA, is a highly regarded medical school and leading center for biomedical research and clinical care...
to study the health risks related to long-duration space flight. The extension will allow a continuation of biomedical research in support of a long-term human presence in space started by the institute and NASA's Human Research Program through 2012.
The Prebreathe Reduction Program is a research study program at the JSC that is currently being developed to improve the safety and efficiency of space walks from the ISS.
The
Overset Grid-FlowOVERFLOW - the OVERset grid FLOW solver - is a software package for simulating fluid flow around solid bodies using computational fluid dynamics...
software was developed at Johnson Space Center in collaboration with
NASA Ames Research CenterThe Ames Research Center , is one of the United States of America's National Aeronautics and Space Administration 10 major field centers.The centre is located in Moffett Field in California's Silicon Valley, near the high-tech companies, entrepreneurial ventures, universities, and other...
. The software simulates
fluid flowIn physics, fluid dynamics is a sub-discipline of fluid mechanics that deals with fluid flow—the natural science of fluids in motion. It has several subdisciplines itself, including aerodynamics and hydrodynamics...
around solid bodies using
computational fluid dynamicsComputational fluid dynamics, usually abbreviated as CFD, is a branch of fluid mechanics that uses numerical methods and algorithms to solve and analyze problems that involve fluid flows. Computers are used to perform the calculations required to simulate the interaction of liquids and gases with...
.
Space Shuttle retirement
JSC put in a bid to display one of the retired Space Shuttle orbiters but was not selected, much to the disappointment of the city of Houston.
Gallery
See also
- Clear Lake Area
- Ellington Field
Ellington International Airport is a joint civil-military airport located in the U.S. state of Texas within the city of Houston— southeast of Downtown. Established by the Army Air Service on 21 May 1917, Ellington Field was one of the initial World War I Army Air Service installations when...
- Christopher C. Kraft, Jr.
Christopher Columbus Kraft, Jr. is a retired NASA engineer and manager who was instrumental in establishing the agency's Mission Control operation...
- Robert R. Gilruth
- Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory
The Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory is an astronaut training facility maintained by and located at the Sonny Carter Training Facility on NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. The NBL consists of a large indoor pool of water, the largest in the world, in which astronauts may perform simulated...
- List of NASA contractors
External links