Overview
Text Size
Overview
In that spirit, this is an exceptionally busy period for JPL in laying new paths. In May we had the highly exciting landing of the Mars Phoenix lander, which will excavate trenches on the arctic plains of the Red Planet in search of water ice. In June we launched the Jason 2 satellite on a joint U.S./French mission to monitor Earth's oceans. In the coming months we will also launch the Orbiting Carbon Observatory, which will make critical measurements of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that plays a major role in climate change.
Image left: Dr. Charles Elachi, JPL Director. Image credit: JPL.
+ Dr. Elachi biography
Among our robotic spacecraft arrayed across the solar system, Dawn is using ion propulsion to take it into orbit around two bodies for the first time ever -- the large asteroid Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres. Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is returning exceptionally detailed photos of the Red Planet's surface, while the rovers Spirit and Opportunity keep going far beyond the mission they were originally designed for. The flagship explorer Cassini continues its orbits of Saturn, scrutinizing the ringed planet and its moons, including the haze-shrouded Titan in an extended mission. The Voyagers are exploring the edge of our solar system.
Closer to home, a contingent of Earth-orbiting satellites monitors the lands, oceans and atmosphere of our own planet, returning important information on topics ranging from atmospheric ozone to El Nino events. Still other explorers are looking far beyond the solar system to search for Earth-like planets and understand the history of distant galaxies. These include the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Galaxy Evolution Explorer, as well as ground-based projects such as JPL instruments on the Keck Telescope in Hawaii. An exciting step in the search for exoplanets will take place in the next year when we launch Kepler, a spaceborne telescope that will seek out Earth-like planets as they pass in front of other stars.
In total, JPL has 18 spacecraft and eight instruments conducting active missions. All of these are part of NASA's Vision for Space Exploration, designed to explore Earth and space and to send robots and humans to explore the moon, Mars and beyond. These ventures would not be possible without NASA's Deep Space Network managed by JPL. This international network of antenna complexes on several continents serves as the communication gateway between distant spacecraft and the Earth-based teams that guide them. While carrying out these exploration missions, JPL also conducts a number of space technology demonstrations in support of national security and develops technologies for uses on Earth in fields from public safety to medicine, capitalizing on NASA's investment in space technology.
JPL is a NASA center staffed and managed for the government by a leading private university, Caltech -- and thus we are known as a federally funded research and development center. I believe that this marriage of the government and university worlds lends us a wonderful intellectual infusion to drive our exploration efforts. Caltech anchors us in the world of excellence and academic curiosity, while NASA gives us the opportunity to reach for the stars.
Venturing into the unknown is not always easy. But as Teddy Roosevelt once said, "Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in that grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat."
The stories of these mighty things we dare are told in the pages that begin here. I hope you will enjoy your visit, and that you find JPL's website to be an inspiring and valuable resource.
Dr. Charles Elachi
Director
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
4800 Oak Grove Drive
Pasadena, California 91109
(818) 354-4321
Related Sites
› Caltech home page
› Careers at JPL
› JPL Fact Sheet
› Annual Reports
› JPL Tours