This is
NASA.
We explore the secrets of the universe for the benefit of all.
- Years of exploration
- 0+
- Active missions
- 0+
- Technology spinoffs
- 0+
- Crewed Moon landings
- 0
- JPL
- Goddard
- Johnson
- Kennedy
- Marshall
- Ames
- Glenn
- Langley
- Stennis
- Armstrong
- ESA
- JAXA
- CSA
Missions
The first A
is for flight.
Before NASA reached space, it studied flight — and still does. The X-59 is built to break the sound barrier with a quiet thump instead of a boom, the key to bringing supersonic travel back over land.
- 1915
- Founded as the NACA
- X-59
- Quesst mission quiet supersonic
- ~925 mph
- Cruise speed, Mach 1.4
X-59, NASA Quesst mission · NASA / Lockheed Martin
Mission Control
Next Launch
Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 17-54
SpaceXUpdated just now
- NET
- June 14, 2026 UTC
- Location
- Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA
- Status
- Go for Launch
Someone has lived in space
every day since 2000.
Continuous human presence in orbit
— yrs — days
- 280+
- People who have visited
- 20+
- Countries represented
- Nov 2000
- Presence unbroken since
Bruce McCandless II, first untethered spacewalk, February 1984 · NASA. Continuous occupancy of the International Space Station since Expedition 1 docked, 2 November 2000.
Hubble eXtreme Deep Field
Nearly every point of light here is a galaxy, not a star — each one a hundred billion suns.
Ten thousand galaxies in a patch of sky you could hide behind a grain of sand. This is the deepest portrait of the universe ever made.
July 12, 2022
The Cosmic Cliffs of Carina
What looks like craggy mountains on a moonlit evening is the edge of the young, star-forming region NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. Captured in infrared light by the James Webb Space Telescope, this image reveals the wall of a vast gaseous cavity, sculpted by the intense ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds of enormous young stars. The tallest 'peaks'…
© NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
Drawn to scale, with Earth 160 pixels wide, the Moon sits about 4,800 pixels of empty space away — 384,400 kilometers on average. Every other planet in the solar system could fit in that gap. At the same scale, Mars at close approach is 142 times farther, and Voyager 1 is about 65,000 times farther.
Look up
tonight.
The Moon is the easiest thing in the sky to find — and it looks different every night. Here is its exact phase right now.
- Phase
- —
- Illuminated
- —
- Next full moon
- —
Phase computed for your local time · Moon: Clementine nearside mosaic, NASA / JPL
By the Numbers
Nearly seven decades of exploration — and counting.
1958
NASA Founded
0
Space Shuttle Missions
~$0B
Annual Budget
~0K
Federal Employees
From NASA's founding in 1958 to today, a journey through the agency's milestones.
- 1958NASA established
- 1962John Glenn orbits the Earth
- 1969Apollo 11 — first lunar landing
- 1977Voyager 1 launched
- 1981First Space Shuttle flight
- 1990Hubble Space Telescope deployed
- 1998ISS construction begins
- 2004Spirit and Opportunity reach Mars
- 2011Final Space Shuttle flight
- 2012Curiosity rover lands on Mars
- 2015New Horizons reaches Pluto
- 2020Crew Dragon returns crewed launches to U.S. soil
- 2021James Webb Space Telescope launched
- 2022Artemis I orbits the Moon
- 2027Artemis III lunar south pole landing (targeted)
2,000+ commercial spinoffs
- Memory Foam (Materials Science, Ames Research Center, 1966): Originally developed to improve crash protection in aircraft seats, NASA's open-cell foam technology became the foundation for the memory foam used in mattresses, helmets, and prosthetics worldwide.
- Scratch-Resistant Lenses (Optics, Lewis Research Center, 1980s): Developed to protect astronaut helmet visors from debris and oxidation in space, the diamond-hard plastic coating process was licensed and is now standard in virtually every pair of eyeglasses and sunglasses sold.
- Infrared Ear Thermometers (Medical Devices, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 1991): Technology built to measure the temperature of stars and planets without physical contact led to the aural thermometer — the device that reads a temperature from the eardrum in under two seconds.
- Water Filtration (Life Sciences, Marshall Space Flight Center, 1960s): Keeping water safe for astronauts on long missions required compact, reliable purification. The iodine-based and activated-carbon technologies developed for Apollo now underpin municipal water treatment and portable filters used in disaster relief.
- Invisible Braces (Medical Devices, Ames Research Center, 1987): Translucent alumina — developed as a heat-resistant material for antenna housings on guided-missile trackers — was repurposed into orthodontic brackets — the material behind today's clear braces.
- CMOS Image Sensors (Electronics, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 1990s): JPL engineers miniaturized camera technology to fit into spacecraft without sacrificing image quality. Their CMOS active pixel sensor design became the basis for the cameras in nearly every modern smartphone.
NASA publishes an annual Spinoff report cataloging commercial technologies derived from space research.
News
NASA to Cover 34th SpaceX Resupply Mission Space Station Departure
NASA and its international partners are set to receive scientific research samples and hardware as a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft is scheduled to depart the International Space…
Read more →Black Eye Galaxy
This March 20, 2026, image of Messier 64, or the Black Eye Galaxy, is a composite view from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and James Webb Space Telescope. It shows Messier 64…
Read more →Hubble Sees Swarm of Galaxies
Looking somewhat like a swarm of bees returning to their hive, this NASA Hubble Space Telescope image features the galaxy cluster MACS0329-0211.
Read more →World Cup Fever in Guadalajara
The city’s metro area has pushed westward since it last hosted World Cup matches in 1986, expanding across a landscape shaped by ancient volcanoes.
Read more →For the Benefit of All