Huntsville Space Center

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center which is also known as Huntsville Space Center is located in Huntsville. Huntsville Space Center evolves key space transportation and force technologies. The NASA's Marshall Space Center is turning its long heritage of space systems and hardware development to support the ongoing science mission of the International Space Station. Huntsville Space Center plays a prime role in International Space Station science operations. The Payload Operations Center at Marshall is NASA's primary space station science command post. This organizes all U.S. scientific and commercial experiments on the station, at the same time it accommodates communications between researchers around the world. Marshall Space Center in Huntsville also plays an important role in space station hardware development. The Center monitors development of the revolving research for distribution of water, electrical power and management of thermal controls on the station.

In 1999 the Huntsville Space Flight Center developed Chandra X-ray Observatory which has become the third of NASA's four Great Observatories. This is the world's most powerful X-ray telescope. The Marshall Space Center, Huntsville developed Chandra and still continues to manage its operation and science activities. In collaboration with Stanford University in Stanford, Calif., the Marshall Space Center, Huntsville has also developed a sophisticated space-based experiment called Gravity Probe B . This was designed to test portions of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity and launched to space in April 2004. It is also now maintained by the Marshall Space Center.

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville hosts a variety of local and on-site events throughout the year. Few of these events are discussed below:

Crew Launch Vehicle

Marshall handles NASA's Exploration Launch Projects. These include:

• The Ares I crew launch vehicle, which will carry the crew exploration vehicle to space.
• The Ares V heavy-lift cargo launch vehicle and earth departure stage, which will transport large structures, materials and supplies to space.

All these vehicles will serve two main purposes, first is establishing a permanent moon base and second extending human presence beyond Earth orbit.

Chandra X-ray Observatory

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory allows scientists from around the world to obtain extraordinary X-ray images of exotic space environs to help understand the structure and development of the universe.

Gravity Probe B