The Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) is a NASA space research laboratory located in Greenbelt, Maryland. It was established on May 1, 1959 as NASA's first space flight center and is named after the American rocket propulsion pioneer Robert H. Goddard.
History[]
In 2003, NASA astronomer Natalie Morioka discovered a formerly unknown asteroid in the vicinity of Jupiter on images taken by the Thomas Paine Space Telescope. The object got the designation 2003LC and after studying the data, it was believed to have decayed from a Jovian trojan orbit. The object appeared to have been thrown out of its orbit and redirected towards the inner Solar System. Further studies figured out that it comes in on a Mars-crossing orbit and that it's about 1.1 km in diameter. After analysis of its moon, it was presumed to have a density of about 7 grams per cm3 and contain an estimate of 70,000 metric tons of Iridium, valued at $20 trillion. Because of this, 2003LC was colloquially known as "Goldilocks".[1]
Gallery[]
Behind the scenes[]
In the real world, the Goddard Space Flight Center manages operations for many NASA and international missions, including the James Webb Space Telescope, which is the real world counterpart of the Thomas Paine Space Telescope in the show, and also the Hubble Space Telescope and other observatory missions.
See also[]
- Other NASA facilites:
- Cobb Space Center (CSC, formerly JSC)
- Kennedy Space Center (KSC)
- Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC)
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
- NASA Flight Research Center (Edwards AFB) (FRC)
- McMurdo Station (NASA annex)
- Carl Sagan Center for Planetary Science
External links[]
References
- ↑ For All Mankind TV series, season 4, episode 5, "Goldilocks"