The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA, was established in 1958.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act on July 29, 1958. NASA began operations on October 1, 1958, taking over many functions of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, known as NACA.
The agency was created during the early space race with the Soviet Union. Its first major human spaceflight program was Project Mercury, followed by Gemini and Apollo. Apollo 11’s crew completed the first crewed lunar landing in July 1969.
NASA is sometimes dated to 1961 because President John F. Kennedy announced the goal of landing a person on the Moon and returning them safely during that year. That goal shaped NASA’s direction, but the agency itself already existed by then.