Johnson Space Center

The Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) is NASA's center for human spaceflight in Houston, Texas. It was first called the Manned Spacecraft Center. This is where astronauts train, where scientists do research, and where flight control happens. In 1973, the United States Senate renamed it after Lyndon B. Johnson, a U.S. president who was born in Texas.

JSC has 100 buildings on 1,620 acres (660 ha) in Clear Lake. The center is home to NASA's astronaut corps. It trains astronauts from the United States and from partner countries. It also has the Christopher C. Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center. This center has handled flight control for every NASA human spaceflight since Gemini 4. These missions include Apollo, Skylab, Apollo–Soyuz, Space Shuttle, and Artemis. People often call it by its radio call signs, "Mission Control" and "Houston."

The center grew out of the Space Task Group (STG), which was led by Robert R. Gilruth. The STG was formed to organize the U.S. crewed spaceflight program. At first, it was based at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, and it reported to the Goddard Space Flight Center near Washington, D.C.. In 1961, plans began to make it its own organization with its own new facility. That facility was built in 1962 and 1963 on land donated by the Humble Oil company through Rice University. It officially opened in September 1963.

Today, JSC is one of ten major NASA field centers. It is also an important part of Houston's culture. In 1967, it earned the official nickname "Space City."

History

Johnson Space Center grew out of NASA's Space Task Group. The group was led by Robert R. Gilruth and directed Project Mercury. When John F. Kennedy set the goal of landing a person on the Moon by the end of the decade, NASA needed a bigger organization to lead the Apollo Program. After looking at many possible places, the team chose Houston, Texas. The land was given to Rice University by the Humble Oil company. It sat beside Clear Lake, near Galveston Bay. Construction began in April 1962, and the center officially opened in September 1963.

Main article: Christopher C. Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center

When Project Gemini began, the older Mercury Control Center was no longer big enough. A new Mission Control Center was built at the center. It was fully ready for the flight of Gemini 4 in 1965. It has been the main flight control center for all later U.S. crewed space missions. The center also holds the former Lunar Receiving Laboratory, where the first astronauts returning from the Moon were quarantined. In 1973, President Richard Nixon signed a resolution to rename the center in honor of Lyndon B. Johnson, who had died a few weeks earlier. After the Space Shuttle Challenger accident in 1986, President Ronald Reagan spoke at a memorial service held at the center. In 2008, Hurricane Ike caused minor damage to the Mission Control Center and other buildings.

Facilities

Further information: List of buildings in the Johnson Space Center

The Johnson Space Center is home to the Christopher C. Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center (MCC-H). It is NASA's control center for all human spaceflight for the United States. MCC-H guided all Space Shuttle missions. Today it guides American work aboard the International Space Station. The Apollo Mission Control Center is in Building 30. It is a National Historic Landmark. Once a crewed spacecraft leaves its launch tower, Mission Control is in charge of it until it lands back on Earth. Several Flight Control Rooms are staffed around the clock during missions. Flight controllers work in them in three shifts. They watch and guide the spaceflights.

The center does most of the planning and training for U.S. astronauts. Its training places include the Sonny Carter Training Facility and the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory. In the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, astronauts practice spacewalks in a very large pool of water. The pool holds about 6.2 million U.S. gallons (23,000 m³). There, astronauts practice extra-vehicular activity tasks while copying zero-g conditions. Building 31-N houses the Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility. It stores, studies, and prepares most of the rock samples brought back from the Moon during the Apollo program. The center also runs the White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico, which was a backup Space Shuttle landing site. The Space Center Houston has been next door since 1994. The Johnson Space Center Heliport (FAA LID: 72TX) is on the campus.

Personnel and training

About 3,200 government workers, including 110 astronauts, work at Johnson Space Center. Most of the workers are over 11,000 contractors. As of October 2014, Stinger Ghaffarian Technologies took over the main contract from United Space Alliance.

NASA trains its astronauts at Johnson Space Center. Astronaut candidates learn about spacecraft systems and basic sciences, such as mathematics, navigation, oceanography, orbital dynamics, astronomy, and physics. Before flight lessons begin, they complete military water survival training. They also become scuba-qualified for spacewalk training, and they must pass a swimming test. Spacewalk training takes place at the Sonny Carter Training Facility. Candidates also learn how to handle emergencies linked to hyperbaric and hypobaric air pressure. They also experience weightlessness, the feeling of spaceflight. To keep their flying skills sharp, they fly 15 hours per month in NASA's T-38 jets, which are based at nearby Ellington Field.

Research

Johnson Space Center leads NASA's scientific and medical research about human spaceflight. Technologies developed for spaceflight are now used in many areas, such as medicine, energy, transportation, agriculture, communications, and electronics. The Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science (ARES) office does the center's physical science research. ARES manages its scientists, who do basic research in earth, planetary, and space sciences. ARES scientists and engineers help the human and robotic spaceflight programs. They also work with the Human Space Flight Programs.

Johnson Space Center received a five-year extension, worth $120 million, of its agreement with the National Space Biomedical Research Institute at Baylor College of Medicine. The work studies health risks of long trips in space. The extension lets biomedical research continue to support a long-term human presence in space. The institute and NASA's Human Research Program began this work through 2012.

The Prebreathe Reduction Program is a research study program at the center. It is being developed to make space walks from the International Space Station safer and more efficient. The Overset Grid-Flow software was developed at Johnson Space Center with NASA Ames Research Center. It simulates fluid flow around solid objects using computational fluid dynamics.

The Texas Space Commission was started by Texas governor Greg Abbott on March 26, 2024, at Johnson Space Center.

List of JSC directors

The following people have served as the director of the Johnson Space Center.

Memorial Grove

Astronauts, center directors, and other NASA employees are remembered in a Memorial Grove near the main entrance and the visitor badging center, which is building 110. Trees planted in memory of astronauts and center directors form a round cluster closest to the entrance.

Other employees are remembered in trees along a road on the facility that leads to the main entrance.

Space Shuttle retirement

JSC asked to display one of the retired Space Shuttle orbiters, but it was not chosen.

Today there is a full-size copy there instead. The space shuttle Independence sits on top of a Boeing 747 airplane, and visitors can see both.