Goddard Geophysical and Astronomical Observatory, Maryland

The Goddard Geophysical and Astronomical Observatory is a 210 acre field site for NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, located a few miles south. The site, staffed by a dozen people or less, has numerous small structures and instruments associated with a variety of programs. These include the Solar System Exploration Division; a Satellite Laser Ranging facility; and Very Long Baseline Interferometry; GPS: and GLONASS. The site is one of just a few places where four or more space geodesy techniques are co-located, providing for comparative analysis.  This facility is one of dozens of unusual sites scattered in and around the 7,000 acres of the US Department of Agriculture’s Beltsville Agricultural Research Center.