NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston is celebrating its 65th anniversary this year. Founded six and a half decades ago to lead the nation's human spaceflight program, the center has supported U.S. crewed missions from Project Mercury through the Artemis missions.

Throughout its history, Johnson has served as the operational heart of human space exploration, coordinating missions, crew training and flight control. Today it functions as the agency's Center of Excellence for Human Spaceflight, with a workforce already engaged in the program's next phases.

The anniversary comes as NASA prepares to return astronauts to the Moon under the Artemis program, a direct heir to the experience accumulated in Houston since the country's first crewed orbital flights.