NASA
The civilian space agency: it sets the missions, oversees ten field centers (including the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which Caltech runs for it) and buys most of its hardware and services from industry.
- Founded
- 1958
- Headquarters
- Washington, D.C.
- Machines in the atlas
- 21
NASA opened on October 1, 1958, built around the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and its laboratories; by the end of that year it had also taken in parts of the Army’s and Navy’s rocket and satellite work and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Congress gave it $24.4 billion in regular appropriations for fiscal year 2026, about one-third of one percent of the $7.4 trillion the Congressional Budget Office projected the federal government would spend that year.
Most of that money leaves the agency as contracts. NASA owns some of what it flies, such as the Space Launch System and Orion, and buys other things as services: seats on Crew Dragon, cargo deliveries to the Space Station, landings on the Moon.
Its machines
Saturn VBuilds part of it
Space ShuttleBuilds part of it
Space Launch SystemBuilds part of it
OrionBuilds part of it
Apollo command modulePrime builder
GeminiPrime builder
International Space StationPrime builder
Hubble Space TelescopeBuilds part of it
James Webb Space TelescopeBuilds part of it
PerseverancePrime builder
CuriosityPrime builder
VoyagerPrime builder
New HorizonsPrime builder
Europa ClipperPrime builder
Parker Solar ProbePrime builder
GOES-RBuilds part of it
LandsatPrime builder
RS-25Builds part of it
Explorer 1Prime builder
TDRSPrime builder
Deep Space Network antennaPrime builder
Stories that involve NASA
28 more stories
Sources
- NASA’s Fiscal Year 2027 Budget Request (summary; includes FY2026 enacted levels) NASA, April 2026
- The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2026 to 2036 Congressional Budget Office, February 2026
- 65 Years Ago: NASA Begins Operations NASA, October 2, 2023
- Centers and Facilities NASA
- Fiscal Year 2019 Annual Procurement Report NASA