NASA marked 65 years of Johnson Space Center on Monday with a history of the Houston campus that opened Nov. 1, 1961, as the Manned Spacecraft Center¹.

The agency said the center grew out of President John F. Kennedy's May 25, 1961, call to land a person on the Moon and return them safely before the decade ended, after the Space Task Group outgrew facilities at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia¹. While construction continued at Clear Lake, NASA said employees first worked in 13 leased buildings in southeast Houston¹.

NASA described Johnson as its Center of Excellence for Human Spaceflight, home to the U.S. astronaut corps and Mission Control, with work spanning International Space Station operations, commercial low Earth orbit partnerships, the Orion Program, the Moon Base Program, and human health research for longer missions¹.

Construction of Building 30, which houses Mission Control, began in June 1963 and finished in November 1964, NASA said¹. Houston took full control of Gemini IV in June 1965 and has controlled each of NASA's human spaceflight missions since, according to the agency¹. The building was renamed the Christopher C. Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center on April 4, 2011¹. NASA said the center still supports the space station around the clock and Artemis missions¹.

NASA also traced astronaut training sites: a 1967 Water Immersion Facility, the Weightless Environment Training Facility from 1980, and the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory at the Sonny Carter Training Center from 1997¹. Building 9, finished in 1967, later held a mock lunar surface used by Apollo 11 astronauts and mockups for all 135 shuttle missions¹. Building 5, completed in April 1965, supported Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, shuttle, station, Orion and Starliner simulators¹.

The Lunar Receiving Laboratory in Building 37 was built starting in 1966 to isolate possible lunar material after Apollo landings¹. NASA said the building was later demolished and Lunar Receiving Park was dedicated in 2026¹.

A NASA photo caption in the same article shows the Artemis II flight control team in the White Flight Control Room during that mission's lunar flyby on April 6, 2026¹.

Sources

1. NASAHappy 65 Years: NASA’s Johnson Space Center Then and Now4:35 PM

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