The NASA Neil A. Armstrong Flight Research Center (AFRC) is an aeronautical research center operated by NASA. Its primary campus is located inside Edwards Air Force Base in California and is considered NASA's premier site for aeronautical research. AFRC operates some of the most advanced aircraft in the world and is known for many aviation firsts, including supporting the first crewed airplane to exceed the speed of sound in level flight, highest speed by a crewed, powered aircraft, the first pure digital fly-by-wire aircraft, and many others. AFRC operates a second site next to Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, known as Building 703, once the former Rockwell International/North American Aviation production facility. There, AFRC houses and operates several of NASA's Science Mission Directorate aircraft including SOFIA, a DC-8 Flying Laboratory, a Gulfstream C-20A UAVSAR and ER-2 High Altitude Platform. As of 2023, Bradley Flick is the center's director.
The Langley Research Center, located in Hampton, Virginia, near the Chesapeake Bay front of Langley Air Force Base, is the oldest of NASA's field centers. LaRC has focused primarily on aeronautical research but has also tested space hardware such as the Apollo Lunar Module. In addition, many of the earliest high-profile space missions were planned and designed on-site. Langley was also considered a potential site for NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center prior to the eventual selection of Houston, Texas.
William Harvey Dana was an American aeronautical engineer, U.S. Air Force pilot, NASA test pilot, and astronaut. He was one of twelve pilots who flew the North American X-15, an experimental spaceplane jointly operated by the Air Force and NASA. He was also selected for participation in the X-20 Dyna-Soar program.
The NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal is an award of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration established in 1991. The medal is awarded to both civilian members of NASA and military astronauts.
Hugh Latimer Dryden was an American aeronautical scientist and civil servant. He served as NASA Deputy Administrator from August 19, 1958, until his death.
Carolyn S. Griner is an American astronautical engineer. She served as the Acting Director of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center from January 3, 1998 to September 11, 1998, between the terms of the eighth and ninth Directors. Before and after her term as Acting Director, she was Deputy Director of the Marshall Center. She retired from NASA on December 11, 2000. She is currently a Vice President of Science Applications International Corporation in Huntsville, Alabama.
Clarence A. "Sy" Syvertson (1926-2010) was the Center Director of the Ames Research Center of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, located at Moffett Field, California.
JoAnn Hardin Morgan is an American aerospace engineer who was the first female engineer at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) John F. Kennedy Space Center and the first woman to serve as a senior executive at Kennedy Space Center. For her work at NASA, Morgan was honored by U.S. President Bill Clinton as a Meritorious Executive in 1995 and 1998. Prior to her retirement in 2003, she held various leadership positions over 40 years in the human space flight programs at NASA. Morgan served as the director of the External Relations and Business Development during her final years at the space center.
Robin Neely Henderson is the Associate Director, Management, of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center located in Huntsville, Alabama. She was named to become the center's Acting Director effective August 3, 2012, following the retirement of the previous director, Arthur E. Goldman, to take a private sector position. On September 25, 2012, NASA named Patrick Scheuermann as the center's new permanent director.
Christine Darden is an American mathematician, data analyst, and aeronautical engineer who devoted much of her 40-year career in aerodynamics at NASA to researching supersonic flight and sonic booms. She had an M.S. in mathematics and had been teaching at Virginia State University before starting to work at the Langley Research Center in 1967. She earned a Ph.D. in engineering at George Washington University in 1983 and has published numerous articles in her field. She was the first African-American woman at NASA's Langley Research Center to be promoted to the Senior Executive Service, the top rank in the federal civil service.
Walter Charles Williams was an American engineer, leader of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) group at Edwards Air Force Base in the 1940s and 1950s, and a NASA deputy associate administrator during Project Mercury.
Dorothy Jean Johnson Vaughan was an American mathematician and human computer who worked for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), and NASA, at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. In 1949, she became acting supervisor of the West Area Computers, the first African-American woman to receive a promotion and supervise a group of staff at the center.
Adena Williams Loston is the 14th president of St. Philip’s College. She was installed as the new president in ceremonies on March 1, 2007.
Mary Jackson was an American mathematician and aerospace engineer at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), which in 1958 was succeeded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). She worked at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, for most of her career. She started as a computer at the segregated West Area Computing division in 1951. In 1958, after taking engineering classes, she became NASA's first black female engineer.
Rita Rapp was an American physiologist who led the Apollo Food System team. She won a NASA Exceptional Service Medal, the United States Civil Service Commission Federal Woman's Award and University of Dayton Distinguished Alumni Award. A plaque in her honor remains at the Johnson Space Center.
Claire Lucille Parkinson is an American Earth scientist and climatologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
Rita M. Sambruna Commander OMRI (Hon) is an Italian-American astrophysicist and is the Deputy Director of the Astrophysics Science Division at National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Center. From September 2022 to May 2023, she was the Acting Deputy Director of the Science Exploration Directorate at Goddard. Rita held the Clare Boothe Luce Professorship in Physics and Astronomy at George Mason University in 2000-2005.
Lana Murphy Couch (1941–2007) was an American aeronautical engineer who headed the National Aero-Space Plane program at the Langley Research Center of NASA.
Ann Fite Whitaker is a retired American physicist who worked for many years at NASA on the effects of space environments on materials. Although she trained to become an astronaut, she never went to space.
