NASA's science division is focused on better understanding Earth through the Earth Observing System; advancing heliophysics through the efforts of the Science Mission Directorate's Heliophysics Research Program; exploring bodies throughout the Solar System with advanced robotic spacecraft such as New Horizons and planetary rovers such as Perseverance; and researching astrophysics topics, such as the Big Bang, through the James Webb Space Telescope, the four Great Observatories, and associated programs.

After the end of World War II, NACA became interested in the possibilities of guided missiles and supersonic aircraft, developing and testing the Bell X-1 in a joint program with the US Air Force.

The Eisenhower Administration decided to split the United States' military and civil spaceflight programs, which were organized together under the Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency.

The Lunar Orbiter program had greater success, mapping the surface in preparation for Apollo landings, conducting meteoroid detection, and measuring radiation levels.

Commanded by Neil Armstrong with astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, Apollo 11 was one of the most significant missions in NASA's history, marking the end of the Space Race when the Soviet Union gave up its lunar ambitions.

The 2012 landing of Curiosity discovered that the radiation levels on Mars were equal to those on the International Space Station, greatly increasing the possibility of Human exploration, and observed the key chemical ingredients for life to occur.

[27] A major defect in the telescope's mirror could have crippled the program, had NASA not used computer enhancement to compensate for the imperfection and launched five Space Shuttle servicing flights to replace the damaged components.

NASA viewed a spaceplane as part of a larger program, providing routine and economical logistical support to a space station in Earth orbit that would be used as a hub for lunar and Mars missions.

Official development of the Space Shuttle began in 1972, with Rockwell International contracted to design the orbiter and engines, Martin Marietta for the external fuel tank, and Morton Thiokol for the solid rocket boosters.

While almost all previous astronauts were Air Force or Naval test pilots, the Space Shuttle allowed NASA to begin recruiting more non-military scientific and technical experts.

Former astronauts Neil Armstrong, Gene Cernan, and Jim Lovell sent a letter to President Barack Obama to warn him that if the United States did not get new human spaceflight ability, the US risked become a second or third-rate space power.

This marked the first time since the retirement of the Space Shuttle that NASA was able to launch its own astronauts on an American spacecraft from the United States, ending a decade of reliance on the Russians.

[44][45] The station consists of pressurized modules, external trusses, solar arrays and other components, which were manufactured in various factories around the world and launched by Russian Proton and Soyuz rockets, and the American Space Shuttle.

Artemis would be the first step towards the long-term goal of establishing a sustainable presence on the Moon, laying the foundation for companies to build a lunar economy, and eventually sending humans to Mars.

The NASA Explorer program office provides frequent flight opportunities for moderate cost innovative solutions from the heliophysics and astrophysics science areas.

Missions in NASA's New Frontiers Program tackle specific Solar System exploration goals identified as top priorities by the planetary science community.

[117][118][119] JWST's high sensitivity in the infrared spectrum and its imaging resolution will allow it to view more distant, faint, or older objects than its predecessors, including Hubble.

Several of the current operating spacecraft programs include: Aqua,[121] Aura,[122] Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2 (OCO-2),[123] Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-on (GRACE FO),[124] and Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite 2 (ICESat-2).

The primary goal of ESDS is to maximize the scientific return from NASA's missions and experiments for research and applied scientists, decision makers, and society at large.

The agency maintains access to suborbital and orbital space launch capabilities and sustains ground station solutions to support its evolving fleet of spacecraft and remote systems.

The placement of these ground stations approximately 120 degrees apart around the planet provides the ability for communications to spacecraft throughout the Solar System even as the Earth rotates about its axis on a daily basis.

[133] The NASA Sounding Rocket Program (NSRP) is located at the Wallops Flight Facility and provides launch capability, payload development and integration, and field operations support to execute suborbital missions.

[145] The modernization effort intends to increase the safety, efficiency, capacity, access, flexibility, predictability, and resilience of the NAS while reducing the environmental impact of aviation.

In order to study and diagnose these ill-effects, HRP has been tasked with identifying or developing small portable instrumentation with low mass, volume, and power to monitor the health of astronauts.

[160] The PDCO augmented prior cooperative actions between the United States, the European Union, and other nations which had been scanning the sky for NEOs since 1998 in an effort called Spaceguard.

[164] In 2005, the original USA Spaceguard mandate was extended by the George E. Brown, Jr. Near-Earth Object Survey Act, which calls for NASA to detect 90% of NEOs with diameters of 140 m (460 ft) or greater, by 2020 (compare to the 20-meter Chelyabinsk meteor that hit Russia in 2013).

[171] OSIRIS-REx used its suite of instruments to transmit radio tracking signals and capture optical images of Bennu during its study of the asteroid that will help NASA scientists determine its precise position in the solar system and its exact orbital path.

[178][179] NEO Surveyor, formerly called the Near-Earth Object Camera (NEOCam) mission, is a space-based infrared telescope under development to survey the Solar System for potentially hazardous asteroids.

[186] Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) provide near-real-time coverage of the western hemisphere to ensure accurate and timely understanding of developing weather phenomenon.

The system initially started to capture archival footage of important space events for NASA managers and engineers and expanded as public interest grew.