NASA Centers and Facilities

NASA maintains more than a dozen centers and facilities across the United States where Postdoctoral Fellows conduct research focused on the earth, including climate, the sun, the solar system, and beyond.

Learn more about the NASA research centers and facilities where postdoctoral researchers work with scientists and engineers to advance NASA's research, testing and development of aeronautics, including electric propulsion and supersonic flight, as well as space technologies that enable future exploration and benefit life on Earth.

Ames Research Center

Since 1939, NASA's Ames Research Center has led NASA in conducting world-class research and development in aeronautics, exploration technology and science aligned with the center's core capabilities. Ames is home to unique facilities and capabilities including the world’s largest wind tunnel, NASA’s fastest supercomputers, NASA’s only arc jet facility for re-entry testing and the world’s largest motion-based flight simulator.

Armstrong Flight Research Center

The Armstrong Flight Research Center is NASA's primary center for high-risk, atmospheric flight research and test projects. The center has the facilities and requisite expertise to conceive, design, analyze, fabricate, integrate, maintain and conduct disciplinary research, flight research and flight test on modified or unique research vehicles and systems.

Astrobiology Program

The NASA Astrobiology Program was established by NASA in 1998 as an innovative way to develop the field of astrobiology and provide a scientific framework for flight missions. The Astrobiology Program is a virtual, distributed organization of competitively-selected teams that integrate astrobiology research and training programs in concert with the national and international science communities. 

Glenn Research Center

The NASA Glenn Research Center designs and develops innovative technology to advance NASA’s missions in aeronautics and space exploration. Glenn’s expertise is focused on research and development of innovative technologies for both aeronautics and space exploration. Its unique facilities enable NASA, other government agencies, and academic and industry partners to perform specialized research and testing.

Goddard Space Flight Center

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center plays a pivotal role across all aspects of the agency’s missions, from development to de-orbit. Goddard’s missions support multiple scientific disciplines, including Earth science, solar science and the sun-Earth environment, planetary studies and astrophysics. Goddard is the operational home of the venerable Hubble Space Telescope. Goddard also surveys the Moon with LRO and watches our Sun with the Solar Dynamics Observatory and Parker Solar Probe. 

Goddard Institute for Space Studies

Research at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) emphasizes a broad study of global change addressing natural and man-made changes in our environment that occur on various time scales and that affect the habitability of our planet. The institute is a laboratory in the Earth Sciences Division of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and is affiliated with the Columbia Earth Institute and School of Engineering and Applied Science. 

Jet Propulsion Laboratory

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a unique national research facility that carries out robotic space and Earth science missions. JPL developed the first Earth-orbiting science satellite, created the first successful interplanetary spacecraft, and deployed robotic missions to study all of the planets in the solar system, as well as asteroids, comets and the moon. JPL also developed and manages NASA’s Deep Space Network, a worldwide system of antennas that communicates with interplanetary spacecraft.

Johnson Space Center

NASA’s Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) is the home of mission control and astronaut training. In its early days, the center led the Gemini, Apollo, Apollo-Soyuz and Skylab projects. JSC was the home of NASA’s Space Shuttle Program from 1981 to 2011, and currently leads International Space Station operations and missions, development of the Orion spacecraft and NASA’s Gateway outpost program, as well as numerous other advanced human exploration projects. The center also plays an important role in NASA’s Commercial Crew program.

Kennedy Space Center

The John F. Kennedy Space Center has been NASA's primary launch center of human spaceflight. Launch operations for the Apollo, Skylab and Space Shuttle programs were carried out from Kennedy Space Center on the east coast of Florida. Additionally, the center manages launch of robotic and commercial crew missions and researches food production.

Langley Research Center

The oldest of NASA's field centers, Langley Research Center focuses on aeronautical research that is helping researchers improve aviation, advance understanding of Earth’s atmosphere, and expand technology for space exploration. Langley Research Center performs critical research on aeronautics, including wake vortex behavior, fixed-wing aircraft, rotary wing aircraft, aviation safety, human factors and aerospace engineering.

Marshall Space Flight Center

For more than six decades, NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center has delivered propulsion systems and hardware, launch vehicles, space systems, engineering technologies, and research projects that are making space exploration possible. Today, Marshall engineers, scientists and researchers are advancing developments in the areas of space transportation and propulsion, space habitats and planetary landers, as well as breakthroughs in complex space systems and scientific research.

NASA Headquarters

NASA Headquarters, in Washington, D.C., provides overall guidance and direction to the agency. Ten field centers and a variety of installations around the country conduct the day-to-day work in laboratories, on air fields, in wind tunnels, and in control rooms. Together, this skilled, diverse group of scientists, engineers, managers, and support personnel share the vision, mission, and values that are NASA. NASA Headquarters is organized into five mission directorates: Aeronautics, Human Exploration and Operations, Science, Space Technology, and Mission Support.

Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI)

NASA created the Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI) to address basic and applied scientific questions fundamental to understanding the Moon, Near Earth Asteroids, the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos, and the near space environments of these target bodies. As a virtual institute, SSERVI funds investigators at a broad range of domestic institutions, bringing them together along with international partners via virtual technology to enable new scientific efforts.

Stennis Space Center

John C. Stennis Space Center is one of 10 NASA field centers in the United States. Because of its important role in engine testing, Stennis is NASA's program manager for rocket propulsion testing with total responsibility for conducting and/or managing all NASA propulsion test programs. Stennis is the premier test complex where engines for all manned Apollo and space shuttle flights have been tested, as well as next-generation engines and rocket stages for NASA’s new Space Launch System (SLS) that will carry humans aboard deeper into space than ever before.

Wallops Flight Facility

The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Wallops Flight Facility is the agency’s premier location for conducting research using suborbital vehicles (i.e., aircraft, scientific balloons and sounding rockets). As NASA’s only rocket launch range, Wallops has launched more than 16,000 rockets carrying aircraft models, space and earth science experiments, technology development payloads, and satellites. Partnering with academia, industry and other government facilities, Wallops is a test site for the development of unmanned aerial vehicle use in the national airspace system.