Research, test and facility support

The solutions we design impact human behavior and performance. It takes as much human ingenuity as digital savvy to do all that we dream today.

Sherloc

As NASA’s largest professional and technical services provider, Jacobs brings subject matter experts with proven experience in their technical fields, delivering innovative solutions to exploration and research programs across the country. This work includes the operation and maintenance of a variety of unique research and development facilities, including NASA arc jet facilities and wind tunnels, with a long history of supporting similar Department of Defense facilities as well.

Explore our advanced R&D and technical facilities services

Wind tunnels

SLS buffet model in wind tunnel

Jacobs is the world’s premier provider for all wind tunnel related services, delivering highly technical, innovative solutions across the entire life cycle including wind tunnel design, fabrication, commissioning, operations, maintenance, condition assessment and capital investment. Our wind tunnel services support a range of wind tunnel customers and users from automotive, freight trucking, aerospace and government. Jacobs provides operations service for all of NASA’s wind tunnels contributing to flight and propulsion research and access to space for Commercial Resupply, Commercial Crew and the agency’s Space Launch System.

Full-range testing capabilities

Testing facility at Johnson Space Center

Jacobs provides an extensive range of reliability testing and prototyping solutions for any aerospace hardware or software application, including: Mechanical & Electronics Manufacturing, Structural Load Testing, Environmental Testing (Thermal/Vacuum, Electromagnetic Interference, Vibration), Antenna Performance, Battery Performance & Failure Testing, Pyrotechnics Testing, and Hypervelocity Impact Testing. To add more fidelity to testing data, unique analysis tools, techniques and computational models are applied to ensure accurate results.

Facility support

  • Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio: At NASA’s center for designing and developing innovative technology in aeronautics and space exploration, Jacobs’ technical services support subsonic and supersonic wind tunnels, engine altitude chambers and component, space propulsion, zero gravity and space simulation facilities.
  • Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland: In addition to developing and validating new technologies for future mission support, Jacobs provides electrical/electronic engineering support services to include the study, design, development, fabrication, integration, testing, verification and operations of space flight, airborne, and ground system hardware and software.
  • Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas: Jacobs provides space exploration integration systems engineering, astro-materials science and hardware reliability testing services here at NASA’s primary center for design, and development for human spaceflight. Jacobs engineers also design and test, robotic systems, life support systems, communications, and astronaut safety systems along with image analysis of space systems hardware.
  • Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, Florida: Jacobs provides overall management and implementation of Kennedy’s ground systems capabilities, flight hardware processing and launch operations. This includes operation and maintenance of the Vehicle Assembly Building, Launch Pad 39B, the Multi-Payload Processing Facility, Launch Equipment Testing Facility, International Space Station science payload support laboratories, and the Thermal Protection System research and production facility.
  • Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia: Jacobs provides Maintenance, Operations, and Engineering support at NASA’s Langley Research Center, home to 270 Research and Institutional Facilities, 220 of which are classified as critical. Efforts here include support to subsonic-to-hypersonic wind tunnels, laboratories, test stands and instrumentation. NASA’s focus is on revolutionary improvements to aviation and expanding the understanding of Earth’s atmosphere and technology development for space exploration.
  • Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama: A campus of world-class facilities for propulsion system and launch vehicle development, advanced materials and manufacturing processes development, flight software development and test, and systems engineering and integration of the SLS rocket. Jacobs support includes construction and operation of the SLS flight software/hardware integration and test facility, the Systems Integration Lab (SIL).