Instrument Systems & Technology Division (ISTD/Code 550) | Goddard Engineering and Technology Directorate

We Cover The Spectrum

The Instrument Systems and Technology Division is Goddard’s bridge to the sciences and exploration community through partnerships with today’s brightest scientists and engineers from across the nation.

Engineering The Future

Our engineer’s technical knowledge spans the entire electromagnetic spectrum. We work on exciting instruments such as optics, cryogenics, lasers, detectors, and microwave radar. By applying technical knowledge, we build instruments that create impact from the ground up to help answer some science’s greatest questions about our earth and our universe.

Division Branches

Inspection of fiber-optic connections in a cryogenic system. — Jack Sadleir inspects fiber-optic connections in a cryogenic system used to test his life-finding sensors at Goddard Space Flight Center.

The Ocean Color Instrument (OCI), for example, shown above is PACE’s primary sensor and is a highly advanced optical spectrometer that will be used to measure light properties over the electromagnetic spectrum.

Mission

Fueled by passion and a sense of curiosity, the Instrument Systems and Technology Division aims to be recognized as a leader for consistently excelling in the development of state-of-the-art Earth and space science instrument hardware and innovative technologies within technical requirements and cost, on time to enable scientific discovery and exploration.

Understanding more about Earth’s resources is a NASA priority crucial to exploring Earth’s natural satellite and other objects in the solar system and beyond. The ISTD works to prototype technologies such as airborne and ground-based instruments to improve the Earth and to explore our solar system and beyond.