Glenn Research Center is one of ten major NASA facilities, whose primary mission is to develop science and technology for use in aeronautics and space.

[3] As of 2015,[update] the station consisted of five major facilities:[4] The Plum Brook Reactor was decontaminated and decommissioned under a 2008 cost-plus-fee contract valued at more than $33.5 million.

[5] In 2019 the U.S. senators from Ohio, Rob Portman and Sherrod Brown, proposed to rename Plum Brook Station after Neil Armstrong.

[6] The legislation[7] was signed into law on December 30, 2020, and Plum Brook Station was renamed the Neil A. Armstrong Test Facility.

The Zero Gravity Research Facility is a vertical vacuum chamber used for dropping experiment payloads for testing in microgravity.

It enables the investigation of the behavior of components, systems, liquids, gases, and combustion when dropped in vacuum.

NASA Glenn does research and technology development on jet engines, producing designs that reduce energy consumption, pollution, and noise.

The chevrons it developed for noise reduction appear on many commercial jet engines today, including those used on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner[10].

The high school program is an eight-week internship for sophomores and juniors with interests in science, technology, engineering, math, or professional administration.

Because of this, it was perceived by some that regional NASA centers like Glenn, which focus on research and technology, were becoming more and more marginalized in terms of resources and relevance.

It was hoped that putting the displays at the much more visited science center will bring the NASA Glenn facility more public exposure.