Astronaut Sunita Williams gives a talk at NASA's Plum Brook Station. In June, NASA Glenn hosted an Open House at Plum Brook Station in Sandusky to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Center. Thousands of people attended, and some lucky kids got to see awesome experiments and meet astronaut Suni Williams.

Space Environments Complex at Plum Brook Station

Orion - EM-1 - Artemis Spacecraft Arrival at Mansfield Lahm Airport, Transportation to Plum Brook Station and Installation in the Space Environment Complex, SEC Thermal Vacuum Chamber

ATLAS CENTAR SHROUD. Atlas 1 Payload Fairing Tested at NASA Plum Brook Station

Employees at the Space Power Facility (SPF) at Plum Brook Station tested a new generation of Atlas/Centaur launch vehicles. General Dynamics conducted the tests December 22 and January 3, 1990 to determine the flight readiness of a new 14-foot diameter payload fairing. The fairing will accommodate new weather satellites, the U.S. Air Force Combined Release and Radiation Effects (CRRES) satellite, and other future payloads. At a simulated altitude of 85,000 feet, the cone-shaped fairing separated in half from a hinge at the bottom. Half of the fairing was then released from the test stack and recovered in a catch-net. The payload fairing separations were the first tests of major space hardware to be conducted in the SPF in more than 15 years.

Aerial Vies of NASA Glenn Research Center, Neil A. Armstrong Test Facility. At the time this photograph was taken, the site was known as Plum Brook Station.

Aerial View of Glenn Research Center, Neil A. Armstrong Test Facility

Groundbreaking Ceremony at the NACA's Plum Brook Station

Addison Rothrock, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics’s (NACA) Assistant Director of Research, speaks at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory’s new test reactor at Plum Brook Station. This dedication event was held almost exactly one year after the NACA announced that it would build its $4.5 million nuclear reactor on 500 acres of the army’s 9000-acre Plum Brook Ordnance Works. The site was located in Sandusky, Ohio, approximately 60 miles west of the NACA Lewis laboratory in Cleveland. Lewis Director Raymond Sharp is seated to the left of Rothrock, Congressman Albert Baumhart and NACA Secretary John Victory are to the right. Many government and local officials were on hand for the press conference and ensuing luncheon. In the wake of World War II the military, the Atomic Energy Commission, and the NACA became interested in the use of atomic energy for propulsion and power. A Nuclear Division was established at NACA Lewis in the early 1950s. The division’s request for a 60-megawatt research reactor was approved in 1955. The semi-remote Plum Brook location was selected over 17 other possible sites. Construction of the Plum Brook Reactor Facility lasted five years. By the time of its first trial runs in 1961 the aircraft nuclear propulsion program had been cancelled. The space age had arrived, however, and the reactor would be used to study materials for a nuclear powered rocket.

Orion spacecraft for the Artemis I Mission, consisting of the crew module and European-built service module, sits in the NASA Glenn Research Center, Plum Brook Station, Space Environments Complex, SEC, Thermal Vacuum Chamber

The Orion spacecraft for the Artemis I Mission, consisting of the crew module and European-built service module, sits in the NASA Glenn Research Center, Plum Brook Station, Space Environments Complex, SEC, Thermal Vacuum Chamber after more than three months of testing where it was subjected to the extreme temperatures and electromagnetic environment it will experience in the vacuum of space during Artemis missions. Orion is a key component of Artemis I, an uncrewed test flight around the Moon that will land the first woman and next man on the lunar surface by 2024.

Artemis Hardware Arrival at the NASA Glenn Research Center, Plum

Crew Dragon Demonstration Mission 1

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon is at NASA’s Glenn Research Center, Plum Brook Station in Ohio, ready to undergo testing in the In-Space Propulsion Facility — the world’s only facility capable of testing full-scale upper-stage launch vehicles and rocket engines under simulated high-altitude conditions. The chamber will allow SpaceX and NASA to verify Crew Dragon’s ability to withstand the extreme temperatures and vacuum of space. This is the spacecraft that SpaceX will fly during its Demonstration Mission 1 flight test under NASA’s Commercial Crew Transportation Capability contract with the goal of returning human spaceflight launch capabilities to the U.S.

Dedication of the Mod-0 Wind Turbine at Plum Brook Station

Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA) Administrator Robert Seamans addresses the crowd at the dedication ceremony for the Mod-0 100-kilowatt wind turbine at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Plum Brook Station. The wind turbine program was a joint NASA/ERDA effort to develop less expensive forms of energy during the 1970s. NASA Lewis was able to use its experience with aerodynamics, powerplants, and energy transfer to develop efficient and cost-effective wind energy systems. The Plum Brook wind turbine was the first of a series of increasingly powerful NASA-ERDA wind turbines built around the nation. From left to right: Congressional Committee aide John Dugan, retired S. Morgan Smith Company chief engineer Carl Wilcox, windmill pioneer Beauchamp Smith, NASA Administrator James Fletcher, Seamans, and Lewis Center Director Bruce Lundin. The three men to the right are unidentified.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine and Congressional Delegati...

Service module testing in Plum Brook Station in Ohio

The European Service Module structural test model, shown on Jan. 23, 2016, is used for testing purposes before installing the real thing. It is as close to the flight version as possible while keeping costs and development time manageable. The structure and weight are the same, while mass equivalents stand in for electronics boxes not needed for the series of tests...The model was installed under a test version of the Crew Module Adapter, and sits on the Spacecraft Adapter that will attach Orion to its launch vehicle. This is the first time the European hardware has been physically connected to NASA’s elements...The service module will be shaken at NASA’s Plum Brook station in Sandusky, Ohio, USA, to recreate the vibrations of launch, as well as being subjected to acoustic and shock environments. Part of Batch image transfer from Flickr.

Space Power Facility at NASA’s Plum Brook Station

Exterior view of the Space Power Facility at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Plum Brook Station in Sandusky, Ohio. The $28.4-million facility, which began operations in 1969, is the largest high vacuum chamber ever built. The chamber is 100 feet in diameter and 120 feet high. It produces a vacuum deep enough to simulate the conditions at 300 miles altitude. The facility can sustain a high vacuum; simulate solar radiation via a 4-megawatt quartz heat lamp array, solar spectrum by a 400-kilowatt arc lamp, and cold environments. The Space Power Facility was originally designed to test nuclear power sources for spacecraft during long durations in a space atmosphere, but it was never used for that purpose. The facility’s first test in 1970 involved a 15 to 20-kilowatt Brayton Cycle Power System for space applications. Three different methods of simulating solar heat were employed during the Brayton tests. The facility was also used for jettison tests of the Centaur Standard Shroud. The shroud was designed for the new Titan-Centaur rocket that was scheduled to launch the Viking spacecraft to Mars. The new shroud was tested under conditions that simulated the time from launch to the separation of the stages. Test programs at the facility include high-energy experiments, shroud separation tests, Mars Lander system tests, deployable Solar Sail tests and International Space Station hardware tests.

Orion - EM-1 - Artemis Spacecraft Arrival at Mansfield Lahm A...

Orion Spacecraft Arrives in Ohio Aboard the Super Guppy at Mansfield Lahm Airport

Bald Eagle at the NASA Plum Brook Station

B-1 and B-3 Test Stands at NASA’s Plum Brook Station

Operation of the High Energy Rocket Engine Research Facility (B-1), left, and Nuclear Rocket Dynamics and Control Facility (B-3) at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Plum Brook Station in Sandusky, Ohio. The test stands were constructed in the early 1960s to test full-scale liquid hydrogen fuel systems in simulated altitude conditions. Over the next decade each stand was used for two major series of liquid hydrogen rocket tests: the Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application (NERVA) and the Centaur second-stage rocket program. The different components of these rocket engines could be studied under flight conditions and adjusted without having to fire the engine. Once the preliminary studies were complete, the entire engine could be fired in larger facilities. The test stands were vertical towers with cryogenic fuel and steam ejector systems. B-1 was 135 feet tall, and B-3 was 210 feet tall. Each test stand had several levels, a test section, and ground floor shop areas. The test stands relied on an array of support buildings to conduct their tests, including a control building, steam exhaust system, and fuel storage and pumping facilities. A large steam-powered altitude exhaust system reduced the pressure at the exhaust nozzle exit of each test stand. This allowed B-1 and B-3 to test turbopump performance in conditions that matched the altitudes of space.

Space Propulsion Research Facility Firing at Plum Brook Station

The Space Propulsion Research Facility, better known as B-2, operating at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Plum Brook Station in Sandusky, Ohio. B-2 is the world's only high altitude test facility capable of full-scale rocket engine and launch vehicle system level tests. It was created to test rocket propulsion systems with up to 100,000 pounds of thrust in a simulated space environment. The facility has the unique ability to maintain a vacuum at the rocket’s nozzle while the engine is firing. The rocket fires into a 120-foot deep spray chamber which cools the exhaust before it is ejected outside the facility. B-2 simulated space using giant diffusion pumps to reduce chamber pressure, nitrogen-filled cold walls create cryogenic temperatures, and quartz lamps replicate the radiation of the sun. This photograph shows the facility undergoing check-out runs prior to its first test in late 1969.The 38-foot diameter and 62-foot tall vacuum chamber is inside the high-bay on the right. Below that is a 67-foot diameter and 120-foot deep spray chamber. The hot rocket exhaust is cooled in the chamber by a spray of 250,000 gallons of water per minute. B-2’s first test was a hot firing of Centaur D-1A rocket on December 18, 1969. Since then the facility has fired more than 100 Pratt and Whitney RL-10 engines during the Centaur development, 80 current RL-10B-2 engines for Delta-3 development, and another 12 RL-10B-2s for the Delta 3 Upper Stage.