California NASA center renamed for Neil Armstrong

The memory of Neil Armstrong lives on at a NASA center.

President Barack Obama on Thursday signed a bill into law that rebrands the Dryden Flight Research Center in Southern California in honor of the late astronaut. Armstrong was a test pilot at the Mojave Desert facility and later became the first moonwalker.

The center is being renamed the NASA Neil A. Armstrong Flight Research Center. As a consolation, the center's test range will be named for Hugh Dryden, a former NASA executive.

It's not the first name makeover for NASA.

In 1999, the Lewis Research Center in Ohio—named for George Lewis, the first executive officer of NASA's predecessor agency—was changed to the John H. Glenn Research Center, after the first American to orbit Earth.

NASA says it's developing a timeline to carry out the latest name change.