page_title: Goddard Space Flight Center
section_title: Missions
hierarchical_section_title: Goddard Space Flight Center / Missions
caption_attribution_description: A rare view of the James Webb Space Telescope face-on, from the NASA Goddard cleanroom observation window. Credit: NASA/Goddard/Rebecca Roth
context_page_description: The Goddard Space Flight Center is a major NASA space research laboratory located approximately 6.5 miles northeast of Washington, D.C. in Greenbelt, Maryland, United States. Established on May 1, 1959 as NASA's first space flight center, GSFC employs approximately 10,000 civil servants and contractors. It is one of ten major NASA field centers, named in recognition of American rocket propulsion pioneer Dr. Robert H. Goddard. GSFC is partially within the former Goddard census-designated place; it has a Greenbelt mailing address.
  GSFC is the largest combined organization of scientists and engineers in the United States dedicated to increasing knowledge of the Earth, the Solar System, and the Universe via observations from space. GSFC is a major US laboratory for developing and operating unmanned scientific spacecraft. GSFC conducts scientific investigation, development, manufacturing and operation of space systems, and development of related technologies. Goddard scientists can develop and support a mission, and Goddard engineers and technicians can design and build the spacecraft for that mission. Goddard scientist John C.
context_section_description: A fact sheet highlighting many of Goddard's previous missions are recorded on a 40th anniversary webpage
caption: James Webb Space Telescope mirrors assembled, May 2016
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