The von Kármán Lecture Series

Spirit and Opportunity: The Corps of Discovery for Mars Rolls On
Jan.15 & 16
For five Earth years, the intrepid robotic explorers Spirit and Opportunity have been successfully conducting field geology at two different locations on the surface of Mars.
Lecture/webcast information

Rovers

Galileo's Dream: The International Year of Astronomy 2009
Feb. 19 & 20
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has chosen 2009 as the Internatonal Year of Astronomy. What makes this year special?
Lecture/webcast information

drawing of people looking at sky

Advanced Propulsion for JPL Deep Space Missions
Mar. 19 & 20
JPL's Dawn mission is en route to rendezvous with the main-belt asteroids Vesta and Ceres, and is using ion propulsion to get there.
Lecture/webcast information

artist concept of Dawn

Rainbows, Red Sunsets and Rocket Science Revisited
Apr.16 & 17
What do patterns of light from the sky reveal about particles in the air?
Lecture/webcast information

dust plume over Eastern Mediterranean

Kepler, a Planet-Hunting Mission
May 14 & 15
Kepler, a NASA mission launching in the spring of 2009, is a spaceborne telescope designed to survey distant stars to see how common Earth-like planets are.
Lecture/webcast information

artist concept of Kepler

The Really Big Picture: Things We Know About the Universe, and How We Know Them
Jun. 11 & 12
The structure and nature of the universe has puzzled and fascinated people for thousands of years.
Lecture/webcast information

region showing active star formation

Exploring the Moon
Jul. 16 & 17
Several international space agencies are actively engaged in robotic as well as human exploration of the moon, including projects from China, Japan, India, Russia, Europe, Germany and the United Kingdom.
Lecture/webcast information

Earth and moon

Robots in the Race to the Moon
Jul. 20
To mark the 40th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing, JPL's historian will look at the role of robots in opening the "lunar frontier."
Lecture/webcast information

Surveyor prototype

Lunar Landing Anniversary with KPCC AirtalkLunar Landing Anniversary with KPCC Airtalk


Jul. 15
On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made the first human footprints on the moon, and much of the work leading up to that historic walk was done right here in Southern California at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Lecture/webcast information

Lunar Landing Anniversary

From Legs to Wheels
Aug. 20 & 21
NASA’s next mission to Mars, the Mars Science Laboratory, will be landing with an extremely unusual landing system – a skycrane invented by the mission team specifically to land a large rover in scientifically exciting locations on Mars.
Lecture/webcast information

artist concept of Mars Science Laboratory

Measuring Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide From Space
Sep. 17 & 18
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is an efficient atmospheric greenhouse gas. Fossil fuel combustion, deforestation and other human activities are currently emitting more than 30 billion tons of this gas into atmosphere each year.
Lecture/webcast information

artist concept of Orbiting Carbon Observatory

How to Drive a Robot
Oct. 15 & 16
The last few years have witnessed some great strides in the field of autonomous mobile robotics.
Lecture/webcast information

graphic showing Mars Exploration Rover navigation technique

Taking a Closer Look at Exoplanet Atmospheres
Nov. 12 & 13
The last two years have seen extraordinary progress in the field of detecting and characterizing the atmospheres of planets circling stars other than the sun.
Lecture/webcast information

map of exoplanet

Monitoring Earth's Changing Land Surface
Dec. 3 & 4
The U.S./Japan ASTER instrument has been taking pictures of Earth's surface since 2000. Dramatic changes are evidence of processes re-shaping our planet.
Lecture/webcast information

Mount St.Helen's eruption