Marshall also manages the Michoud Assembly Facility, a state-of-the-art facility in New Orleans, La., where critical hardware components for the space shuttle and exploration vehicles are manufactured for Marshall and other NASA field centers.

U.S. Department of the Interior’s National Park Service has designated five Marshall Center facilities as National Historic Landmarks: the Redstone Test Stand, Propulsion and Structural Test Facility, Saturn V dynamic Test Stand, Neutral Buoyancy Simulator, and the Saturn V on display at the United States Space and Rocket Center.

Marshall’s contribution to the Apollo lunar landing program included development of the Lunar Roving Vehicle for transporting astronauts on the lunar surface.

Rocket scientist Wernher von Braun was the first director of Marshall Space Flight Center.

Marshall Space Flight Center developed the Delta series of rocket boosters.

Marshall Space Flight Center is located on the Army’s Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville Alabama.

Joystick controllers are used for lots of things, including computer games and vehicles for people with disabilities. These devices evolved from research to develop a controller for the Apollo Lunar Rover, and from other NASA research into how humans actually operate (called "human factors").

Portable, self-contained power tools were originally developed to help Apollo astronauts drill for moon samples. This technology has lead to development of such tools as the cordless vacuum cleaner, power drill, shrub trimmers, and grass shears.

Contrary to common belief, NASA did not invent Tang, Velcro, or Teflon.

Well-known products that NASA claims as spin-offs include memory foam (originally named temper foam), freeze-dried food, firefighting equipment, emergency "space blankets", Dustbusters, cochlear implants, and now Speedo's LZR Racer swimsuits.

NASA entered into over 250 Space Act Agreements with private and other external entities for development of dual-use technology targeted to Mission Directorate technology needs.

NASA has been issued over 6,300 patents, nearly one in a thousand of all patents ever issued by the U.S. Patent Office (since 1790).

Node 3, known as Tranquility and launched on STS-130, will provide additional room for crew members and many of the space station's life support and environmental control systems.

The cupola includes window shutters that provide orbital debris protection when closed. It will be used for telerobotic operations.

The cupola, launching to the ISS on STS-130, is 4.9 feet in length, 9.7 feet in diameter and will weigh about 4,145 pounds in orbit.

STS-130 is the 130th space shuttle flight, the 24th flight for shuttle Endeavour and the 32nd flight to station.

At least three spacewalks are planned for Endeavour's STS-130 crew.

Shuttle Endeavour's flight will be the 32nd shuttle station assembly mission.

Scheduled to launch Sunday, February 7, 2010, shuttle Endeavour and its crew will deliver to the space station a third connecting module, the Italian-built Tranquility node and the seven-windowed cupola, which will be used as a control room for robotics.