NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Dr. Raj Kaul examines "bricks" of radiation shielding material. (NASA/MSFC)
The Marshall team works together across scientific and engineering disciplines to design, develop, integrate, test, and operate complex rockets, spacecraft systems and science instruments that enable exploration and scientific discovery. A few of Marshall's unique facilities and capabilities include:


Materials and Processes

• Defines and develops state-of-the-art materials, streamlined processes, and light-weight, high-strength products to be used in the harsh space environment
• Houses the country's largest friction-stir welding machine, which creates large-scale structures such as Ares rocket tanks
• Manages the National Center for Advanced Manufacturing, NASA's principal resource for aerospace manufacturing research, development, and innovation

Mission Operations

• Home of NASA's Payload Operations Center, which is the International Space Station's primary science command post for more than six years of continuous station habitation
• Mission Operations Laboratory experts train astronauts and ground controllers to operate and maintain U.S. science experiments.
• Ground systems include telemetry, voice, video, information management, data reduction, and payload planning to link scientists around the world with their experiments
• Huntsville Operations Support Center supports shuttle launches, monitoring a range of propulsion parameters

Propulsion Systems

• Develops and matures propulsion technologies for current and future space transportation and science missions
• Contributes engineering expertise for all transportation phases, including boost, upper stage, and in-space applications
• Operates the Propulsion Research Development Laboratory, a national resource for researchers from NASA, other government agencies, and universities; it includes high-bay space used by operations staff to try out Ares I upper stage processing procedures to reduce vehicle turnaround time and cost

Space Systems

• Designs, develops, integrates, tests, and fields the range of human and robotic systems
• Defines and develops science experiments and life support systems
• Performs mechanical design and analysis, electrical design and integration for hardware, and data systems design and development
• Performs testing and flight certification for International Space Station science racks

Spacecraft and Vehicle Systems

• Provides system design and analysis, including structural, avionics, flight mechanics
• Performs end-to-end systems engineering to fully integrate spacecraft and vehicles with ground processing and launching facilities
• Provides vehicle technical design and verification, from concept through post-flight performance assessments
• Provides sustaining engineering support to the shuttle, space station, Chandra X-Ray Observatory, and other space systems

Test Facilities

• Includes more than 40 facilities for all types of rocket and space transportation technology testing, from small components to full-up engine hot-fire testing.
• Responsible for overall performance of the test program from conception to completion.
• Offers one of the few test stands in the world that can handle large liquid-fueled rocket engines.
• Provides an unsurpassed capability for testing large rocket structures.

Environmental Control and Life Support System Facility

• Provides a test bed for delivering clean air, a comfortable living environment, and drinkable water on the space station.
• Modules simulate the space station environment, with treadmills, urine and perspiration sample collection tools, and laboratory for processing.

Flight Robotics Facility

• Home of the world’s flattest floor: 44 feet wide, 86 feet long, and varying no more than 1/1000th inch in height
• It is completely black and able to simulate floating in space.
• Houses large overhead robotic arm used to test automated rendezvous and docking sensors.

National Space Science and Technology Center

• State-of-the-art research facility on the campus of UAHuntsville
• Many specialized laboratories for conducting cutting-edge research in Earth and space sciences
• Work is performed in collaboration with academic, private sector, and government partners

SERVIR Test Bed

• Uses satellite imagery to monitor and forecast ecological changes and severe events such as forest fires and red tides.
• Can monitor areas at risk for flooding or natural disasters such as landslides.
• Used to locate archaeological ruins.

Space Optics Manufacturing

• Performs research on optics for future space telescopes.
• Develops ultra-lightweight optics materials and fabrication technologies.

X-ray & Cryogenic Facility

• World's largest and most advanced laboratory for simulating X-ray emissions from distant celestial objects.
• Instrumental in developing the optics for the Chandra X-ray Observatory and X-ray telescopes that study the birth and death of stars and galaxies.
• X-ray & Cryogenic Facility supports the James Webb Space Telescope with the very-low-temperature and very-high-temperature environments required for cryogenic-optical verification.