14 DAY TRIAL // Officials with the American space agency have just announced that a ceremony to rename the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, at the Edwards Air Force Base (EAFB), in California, to NASA Armstrong Flight Research Facility has been scheduled for May 13. The event will take place at the AFRC campus within the confines of the US Air Force base.
The switch-up was announced a couple of months ago, amid bipartisan support in Congress. Though the new name has been in use since then, the facility has not yet been officially renamed on paper. The ceremony next month is meant to make everything official. The event will take place at 10 am PDT (1700 GMT), inside EAFB Hangar 4802.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden is expected to attend the ceremony, as are David McBride, the director of the Armstrong Center, California Rep. Kevin McCarthy, and several members of both the Armstrong and Dryden families. President Obama signed the decision to rename the facility into law on January 16, after the House of Representatives voted it through in early 2013.
The law, which entered effect on March 1, also includes the renaming of the aeronautical test range at the AFRC after the late Hugh L. Dryden, whose name was used to designate the installation for the past 38 years. Dryden was the first deputy administrator at NASA, from 1958 until 1965. Previously, he was the director of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, from 1949 to 1958.