Marshall Space Flight Center

The Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, is NASA's lead center for space transportation systems and development, and its Center of Excellence for space propulsion. The center also is NASA's leader in microgravity research and space product development programs. This unique field of science is conducted in the near-weightlessness of space, but holds the key to a broad range of benefits on the ground.

As world leaders in access to space, Marshall's scientists and engineers are defining the cutting edge of technology to unlock the doors for space development and exploration. A key to doing so is the Space Launch Initiative, a comprehensive, long-range plan to increase commercial development and civil exploration of space. It is intended to enable at least two competitive second generation reusable launch vehicle concepts by 2005. It will do so by clearly identifying all the requirements for such a vehicle and making technology investments needed to reduce risks associated with them.

A series of experimental, reusable launch vehicle demonstrator projects is focused on technologies for dramatically increasing safety and reliability while slashing launch costs. These programs are tackling the difficult task of lowering the current $10,000 per pound cost of putting payloads into space--first to $1,000 per pound, then to as low as $100 per pound.

The lightweight X-33, with its unmistakable wedge shape and revolutionary "linear aerospike" rocket engines, will take off vertically, fly to altitudes of 60 miles, travel at up to 13 times the speed of sound, and land horizontally.

The X-34 will be launched from beneath a modified jetliner and powered by a new reusable engine, designed and developed by Marshall engineers and built by industry partners. Capable of 8 times the speed of sound, the X-34 can fly to roughly 50 miles high and land on conventional runways.

Unlike the X-33 and X-34, the X-37 will make history as the first reusable demonstrator to fly in both orbital and reentry environments, at up to 25 times the speed of sound.

NASA engineer Zena Hester of the Microgravity Research program monitors a test run of an experiment designed to predict the formation of tiny tree-like crystals important to the study of physical properties of materials used in the casting of metals in turbine blades, industrial tools and engine parts.

Marshall also oversees a series of "Future-X" experiments, plus other space transportation technology efforts, all pursuing the key goals of cost-reduction, greater safety, and reliability. Approaches being pursued range from the relatively simple to some that are radically exotic.

While such future-focused programs aggressively seek to create a "highway to space," Marshall has a critical role in today's flight operations by helping to keep the nation's flagship space vehicle safely flying. The center provides and manages propulsion elements for the Space Shuttle: the vehicle's reusable main engines, the incredibly powerful solid-rocket boosters, and the enormous external fuel tank required for every Shuttle flight.

Virtually no modern industry has been untouched by four decades of space research and development--and virtually every human life has benefited from the scientific endeavors conducted at Marshall. As world leaders in the use of space for research and development to benefit humanity, center scientists and engineers are helping industry create new medicines and medical procedures, manufacturing processes, and electronics and communications breakthroughs.

As a prime example, Marshall is the lead NASA center for use of microgravity--the near-weightless environment of space--to conduct experiments that would be all but impossible on Earth. This research is advancing our understanding of key biological, chemical, and physical processes. In the process, it is opening doors to commercial development of space, improved health care, advanced alloys and composite materials, and new theories in physics.

One proposed alternative to the use of combustion propellants for future space travel is solar sails that would enable solar winds to propel a spacecraft away from Earth and toward its destination.

The International Space Station is soon to become operational as the premier laboratory in which microgravity researchers conduct experiments. The scope and complexity of these experiments will increase dramatically when the primary U.S. research element--the Destiny Laboratory module--is launched. As one of its array of facilities, Marshall is designing, developing, and testing the Microgravity Science Glovebox--an enclosed miniature laboratory for permanent installation aboard the station.

Marshall is also providing several other components that are vital to making the station a fully productive orbiting research facility:

• An Interim Control Module, as a backup or supplemental propulsion source for reboost and positioning capabilities during the initial years of Station construction.
• The Station Propulsion Module, to provide long-term Station altitude and position propulsion--a key part of the system to prevent the Station from crossing paths with potentially dangerous space debris.
• The Environmental Control and Life Support System, a water recycling and oxygen generation system intended to eliminate the need to continuously resupply the Station crew with thousands of pounds of life-sustaining air and water.
• The Deorbit Propulsion Stage--the primary source of propulsion for the Space Station Crew Return Vehicle, a "lifeboat" to safely return the crew to Earth in emergencies.

In 1999, Marshall celebrated the spectacular results of many years of hard work on the Chandra X-ray Observatory. The most powerful X-ray telescope ever built was launched and began several years of studying violent, high-temperature objects in space--comets, exploded stars, even black holes at the heart of far-off galaxies.

Unwilling to rest on its laurels, NASA is already looking ahead to the development and launch of even more advanced telescopes. Marshall's new Space Optics Manufacturing Technology Center is taking the lead for NASA's development of advanced, ultra-lightweight optics materials, fabrication technology, precise measurement standards, and state-of-the-art testing facilities.

NASA's Global Hydrology and Climate Center, located in Huntsville and managed by Marshall, is the scientific powerhouse for climatology research in the southeastern United States. Benefits of its work and expertise include improved hurricane and severe storm prediction, more reliable day-to-day weather forecasting, and more effective urban planning.