NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Goddard Facilities

Significant Dates at Goddard/Size of Facility

Top 25 Contractors at Goddard

Workforce Data FY05

Workforce Data

Unique Resources



Goddard Facilities

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) is located within the City of Greenbelt, Maryland, approximately 6.5 miles northeast of Washington, D. C. The suburban campus is situated approximately 1 mile northeast of the Capital Beltway/Interstate 495.

This NASA field center is a major U.S. laboratory for developing and operating unmanned scientific spacecraft. The Center manages many of NASA's Earth Observation, Astronomy, and Space Physics missions. GSFC includes several other properties, most significantly the Wallops Flight Facility near Chincoteague, Virginia.

The GSFC Greenbelt Facility encompasses 514 ha (1,270 acres) and in addition to the Main Site, maintains the adjacent Magnetic Test Facility and Propulsion Research site; and the outlying sites, including the Antenna Performance Measuring range and the Optical Tracking and Ground Plane Facilities. NASA has ownership of 454 ha (1,121 acres) of land at Greenbelt. The remaining 60 ha (149 acres) are the outlying sites and are held by revocable lease from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

The Main Site of the Greenbelt Facility has the principal boundaries of Greenbelt Road to the south, Good Luck Road to the east, the Baltimore-Washington Parkway to the west, and the agricultural land of the USDA Beltsville Agricultural Research Center (BARC) to the north.

This Main Site is separated and divided in a north-south direction by Soil Conservation Service Road (SCS Road) forming two distinct parcels of secured land, the East and West Campuses. Combined, these grounds form a campus environment including 33 major buildings providing more than 278,000 m sq (3,000,000 sq ft) of research, development and office space. GSFC is unique in that these facilities provide for the construction and development of spacecraft software, scientific instruments as well as the spacecraft themselves.

The West Campus is where GSFC development originated and until recently was primarily concentrated. The buildings are typically laid out on grids relating to a network of roadways and resulting parking areas. There is a well-defined natural buffer at the perimeter of the West Campus, and areas of undeveloped woodlands within. The grounds provide a natural habitat for deer, geese, and other wildlife. The buildings generally are two to three stories high, often brick, and simply detailed. There are many on-site amenities which reinforce the campus-like atmosphere, including food services, health services, and recreation activities. The arrangement and placement of the buildings and amenities has created an environment encouraging free pedestrian circulation within reasonable travel distances.

The East Campus, which occupies approximately 170 ha (422 acres), hasa visual character very different from that of the West Campus and is heavily influenced by its natural, relatively undeveloped setting. This setting offers an array of visually positive features including rolling topography, dense tree stands, and native flora.

The northern area of the East Campus contains several, sparsely developed buildings that are surrounded by wooded areas. These buildings support maintenance, utilities, tracking, or communication operations and typically have flat roofs and metal or masonry brick construction. For the most part, the design of these buildings reflects their functional use. Antennae, satellite dishes, and other communication equipment that support the operations of these facilities are also dispersed throughout this area. The wooded areas that surround these facilities currently serve as visual buffers to the activities and their locations.

The southern area of the East Campus has experienced much recent development. As the lead Center for NASA's Mission to Planet Earth, GSFC has located this coordinated research effort in newly-constructed facilities on this site. These facilities include Building 32/ Earth Observing System Data Information System (EOSDIS) and Building 33/ Earth Systems Science Building (ESSB). In conjunction with this development, a new Central Chilled Water and Generator Plant, Building 31, has been constructed to serve the area.

Although occupying only a portion of the East Campus, these relatively large buildings have altered the visual character of the site. The remaining East Campus is still largely wooded, and any new facilities planned for this area will likely continue to change this visual character. Important issues in addressing the future of the East Campus are the unification of design elements; views onto the site from SCS Road, Good Luck Road and Greenbelt Road; integration of parking into the site; conservation of significant pockets of open space including wooded areas; and the creation of pedestrian linkages and a pedestrian scale environment appropriate to a campus environment.

For a more detailed view of GSFC's facilities and services, visit the Facilities Management Division Homepage.


Significant Dates for Goddard/Size of Goddard Facility

Greenbelt:

1958: National Aeronautics and Space Administration founded.
1959: Goddard Space Flight Center established as NASA's first space flight center.
1960: TIROS I, first weather observation satellite.

Wallops Island:

1945: Wallops Flight Facility established under the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.
1958: Wallops Station created under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
1975: Wallops Flight Center established.
1982: Wallops Flight Facility created in consolidation with Goddard Space Flight Center.

Facility Size:

Greenbelt:

1121 acres of land
50 buildings

Wallops Island:

6188 acres of land
84 major buildings including aircraft hangars


Major 25 Contractors at Goddard Greenbelt, Maryland for FY 2004

Contractor	Millions of Dollars Obligated
Honeywell Technologies	$162.7
Lockheed Martin Corp.	123.8
Northrup Grumman Space & Mission	90.0
Swales and Associates	89.0
Raytheon Information Systems	82.0
QSS Group, Inc.	78.0
Science Systems Applications	73.9
Boeing Satellite Systems	68.0
TRW Inc.	48.8
Ball Aerospace and Tech. Corp.	43.2
SGT Inc.	31.9
Mantech System Engineering Group	29.9
Northrup Grumman Systems Corp.	29.0
TRAX International.	28.2
PRC Inc.	27.9
ITT Industries, Inc.	27.0
Spectrum Astro	26.0
Cube Corp.	24.0
Science Application International Corp.	23.4
Parsons Infrastructure and Tech.	16.4
Averstar Inc.	15.7
Computer Sciences Corp.	15.2
ITT Corp.	14.5
Indus Corp.	12.0
LB&B Associates	11.7

Graphic of the FY05 Workforce at Goddard Space Flight Center


Click image to enlarge.

Workforce/FY 2004 at Goddard in Greenbelt, MD

Job Classification	Civil Servants	Contract Personnel
Clerical	191	384
Professional/Administrative	862	1411
Scientist/Engineer	1857	3261
Technician	181	1,084
Wage Grade	38	736
Total Workforce	3129	6876

Unique Resources at Goddard

Diffraction Grating Evaluation Facility (DGEF)

The Diffraction Grating Evaluation Facility (DGEF) is a world-class, advanced resource that was developed at Goddard to evaluate optical components such as diffraction gratings, mirrors, and filters as well as detection systems used in space instrumentation. The DGEF has the ability to measure imaging performance, scattered light, and spectral efficiency at the sub-arcsecond level over a spectral range of 30 to 1100 nm. The facility can accommodate optical systems up to 1 meter in diameter. The DGEF has been used to determine the performance of diffraction gratings, mirrors, filters, polarizers, telescopes, and imaging camera systems. For example, the 16 grating types that were incorporated into the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) that was installed into the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) in 1997.

Earth Observing System Data and Information System Facility (EOSDIS)

The EOSDIS Facility will allow scientists to access data about the Earth system quickly and easily. EOSDIS will command and control the EOS instruments and will process, archive and distribute the data from them.

Flight Dynamics Facility (FDF)

The Facility offers a range of engineering services to mission designers, spacecraft builders and spacecraft flight projects. The FDF is also a leader in advancing the technical disciplines of orbit determination, attitude determination, maneuver planning, onboard navigation systems, and attitude sensor performance analysis. This includes work in new navigation techniques such as the application of the Global Positioning Satellite for spacecraft orbit determination, and advances in spacecraft autonomy. Currently, the FDF provides orbit and attitude determination for more than 15 NASA spacecraft, and also supports Space Shuttle operations and expendable launch vehicles.

High Capacity Centrifuge

This 30-g capability rotary accelerator capable of rotating 5,000-lb payloads at up to 30-rpm is housed in its own circular building 15. Tilt fixtures allow the orientation of test articles in a wide range of attitudes and angles. Controlled deceleration is also possible by operating the two 930-Kw DC drive motors in a regenerative mode.

Hubble Space Telescope Control Center (STOCC)

Space Telescope managers and engineers control the orbiting observatory and maintain an around-the-clock vigil from an array of consoles.

Integrated Mission Design Center

The Integrated Mission Design Center is an exciting new endeavor of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. The IMDC is a national resource dedicated to innovation in space mission design & advanced concepts development to increase value for NASA and its customers. The IMDC and its team of engineers is revolutionizing the mission design process in the initial phase of space and earth missions. This pioneering Center, in its first year, is already shaping NASA's science-enabling process. Explore our Web site to learn more.

Magnetics Test Facility

Located off-site in a magnetic-quiet area, a 40-ft and a 20-ft triaxial Braunbek coil magnetics test facility operated from a single control building is used to calibrate and align both instrumentation and satellite attitude control systems and determination of the dipole moment of spacecraft (critical to conservation of attitude control devices). Capable of nulling the earth's magnetic field in all three axes, the systems can impose static or dynamic fields ranging from +60,000 to -60,000 n-Tesla with a 0.1-nT resolution.

The NASA Center for Computational Sciences (NCCS)

The NCCS is a world-class supercomputing facility providing the NASA-funded science community with the most powerful computing and mass storage resources available. Scientists use the NCCS to increase their understanding of the Earth, the solar system, and the universe through computational modeling and processing of space-borne observations. The NCCS supplies state-of-the-art high-performance computing targeted to the specialized needs of Earth and space scientists. Researchers benefit from the NCCS's mass storage technologies that meet head-on the challenge of today's rapidly growing data storage needs. Highly skilled, dedicated support staff provide a complete range of computational science expertise.

NASA Communications Network (NASCOM)

The NASCOM network is a global system that provides communications support to all NASA projects. Voice, data, and teletype links are available through the network for connecting the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) with user spacecraft control centers. Land lines, submarine cables, and microwave/satellite links make up this communications system. The user services available from the Space Network, which includes TDRSS and its supporting Goddard elements, are provided through NASCOM.

NASA Space Science Data Center (NSSDC)

The NSSDC provides online and offline access to a wide variety of astrophysics, space plasma and solar physics, lunar and planetary, and Earth science data from NASA space flight missions, in addition to selected other data and some models and software. NSSDC provides access to online information bases, as well as paper documents about NASA mission data held at NSSDC; other data at NSSDC; data held at sites other than at NSSDC; and the spacecraft and experiments that have or will provide public access data. NSSDC also provides information and support relative to data management standards and technologies. For online requests, send messages to: request@nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov

Network Control Center (NCC)

The Network Control Center, located at Goddard manages the total Space Network. The NCC schedules and configures the TDRSS and monitors the status data sent back for ongoing scheduled services. Operators schedule emergency services, isolate any problems in the system, and restore faulty user services. The Control Center has the ability to communicate with other ground tracking stations through the NASA Communications (NASCOM) network. Console operators monitor the network performances, schedule emergency interfaces, isolate faults in the system, account for system use, test the system, and conduct simulations.

Payload Operations Control Center (POCC)

All data from the TDRSS goes directly to Payload Operations Control Centers (POCCs). An "operations" control center can provide support to one or many spacecraft. Some are located at the Goddard Center and some are located at the site of the investigator. Equipment located in control centers handles all data, generates commands, and interfaces the communications. A payload control center also processes experiment status, command, and telemetry; handles attitude data for orienting equipment; controls payload operations and instrument sensors; and plans and analyzes the mission.

Quality Assurance and Detector Development Laboratory (QUADDL)

The QUADDL provides office and laboratory space for the Materials Branch and a state-of-the-art Class 100 clean room laboratory for the Electron Device Development Section.

Scientific Visualization Studio

The Scientific Visualization Studio (SVS) is the Earth Science Division's source of expertise and user assistance for scientific visualization. High quality images and animations, the testing and consulting of visualization tools and methods, and the testing of tools for scientific data analysis are all functions performed by the SVS. The SVS is run by the Software Integration & Visualization Office and is funded by the Earth Science Research Division at NASA Headquarters.

Space Environment Simulator

This three-story high thermal-vacuum chamber located in Bldg 10 features a 27-ft diameter by 40-ft high vacuum chamber capable of simulating temperature and vacuum conditions for virtually any satellite launch or orbit environment condition. This test chamber, recently upgraded at a cost of over $3M with 8 periphery-mounted cryopumps (to insure no test item oil contamination as is possible with diffusion pumps); a turbo-molecular pump (for chamber pressures below .00001 to .0000001-torr); and a new state-of-the-art MIMIC Control Panel for easy, safe, and reliable operation of the chamber. Shroud temperatures within the chamber can be controlled to -90 to +75C using gaseous nitrogen and to -180C with liquid nitrogen.

Spacecraft Fabrication Facility

In this facility, Goddard technicians and engineers manufacture components used for spacecraft assembly. This includes the tools which the astronauts use in space as well as the spacecraft themselves. This facility includes a computer controlled milling machine which can make large spacecraft components and machines which can cut very complex small shapes with very thin wire. High precision machining, sheet metal forming and punching, material plating, welding and heat treating, along with the assembly of spacecraft and scientific instruments, are performed in this facility.

Spacecraft Systems Development and Integration Facility

This 86,000 square-foot facility contains one of the largest "clean rooms" in the world. This cleanroom has played a major role in preparations for the Hubble Space Telescope First Servicing Mission. All of the instruments and devices to be installed on the observatory during the planned five Extra Vehicular Activity, 11-day mission have passed through this facility on their way to the Kennedy Space Center, Fla., where the mission (STS-61) was launched. Designed for testing and integrating spacecraft hardware, the Class 10,000 laminar-flow cleanroom provides an environment that removes 99.99 percent of all particles 0.3 microns and larger. The 12,500 square-foot (1,161 square-meter) cleanroom can accommodate two major space shuttle payloads. The cleanroom is a part of the $16 million Space Systems Development and Integration Facility, which opened in 1990.

Spacecraft Test and Integration Facility

This facility contains cleanrooms for spacecraft integration and special chambers for environmental test of spacecraft. Thermal-vacuum chambers, a vibration platform, and an acoustic test chamber are located in this facility. There is also a full-scale model of the cargo bay of the space shuttle and a 4-story model of the Hubble Space Telescope.