JPL grew up with the Space Age and helped bring it into being. It is a place where science, technology, and engineering intermix in unique ways: to produce iconic robotic space explorers sent to every corner of the solar system, to peer deep into the Milky Way galaxy and beyond, and to keep a watchful eye on our home planet. Analyzing the data pouring back from these machine emissaries, scientists around the world continue to discover how the universe, the solar system, and life formed and evolved.
The Early Years
JPL's beginnings can be traced to the mid-1930s, when a few Caltech students and amateur rocket enthusiasts started tinkering with rockets. After an unintended explosion occurred on campus, the group and its experiments relocated to an isolated area next to the San Gabriel Mountains, the present-day site of JPL. In the following decade, as an anxious country sought to respond to the menacing challenge of German V-2 rockets, the fledgling Jet Propulsion Laboratory (officially named in 1944, some 14 years before NASA was formed) was sponsored by the U.S. Army to develop rocket technology and the Corporal and Sergeant missile systems.
Becoming Part of the NASA Family
The early years of space exploration were fueled by the Cold War. The Soviet Union won the first round in October 1957 by placing Sputnik into Earth orbit. The "beep-beep" sound transmitted by the satellite was nervously heard around the free world, and pressure mounted for the United States to respond. In less than three months, JPL had built
Explorer 1, launched in January 1958 to become America's first satellite. Even this first spacecraft made an important scientific discovery: it detected what would become known as the Van Allen radiation belts encircling Earth, named after James Van Allen, the scientist who designed the main instrument on Explorer 1. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration was founded in October 1958, and JPL was transferred from the Army to the new agency. The transition from the Army to NASA also marked another change. The Laboratory began to turn its attention from the rockets themselves to the payloads they would carry. Developing these payloads - scientific spacecraft - would become the new focus and place JPL at the center of the Space Race with the Soviet Union. Even though the Laboratory's charter had completely evolved away from rockets and jets, "Jet Propulsion Laboratory" had become the official name and was retained. Another defining moment for America in space came in 1962, when the JPL-built Mariner 2 flew past Venus to become the world's first spacecraft to successfully encounter another planet. Thus commenced a long series of "first ever" accomplishments by JPL that helped define history's first five decades of space exploration. JPL has a unique position within the NASA family. Ever since its transfer to NASA, JPL has been structured as an FFRDC(Federally Funded Research and Development Center) dedicated to the robotic exploration of space. The Laboratory is NASA's only FFRDC and works alongside NASA's nine field centers. However, unlike those centers, which are staffed by government civil servants, JPL is managed for NASA by Caltech under a contractual arrangement begun in 1958 and renewed every five years. Thus, JPLers are Caltech employees.
Era of Large Space Missions
In the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s, NASA focused JPL's expertise on large, complex, one-of-a-kind space missions. This era produced the Voyagers to the outer planets, the Vikings to Mars (in partnership with NASA's Langley Research Center), the Galileo mission to the Jupiter system (in partnership with NASA's Ames Research Center), and Cassini-Huygens to the Saturn system (in partnership with the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency). These legendary spacecraft extended humanity's senses throughout the solar system, letting us examine the planets and moons up close.
How Mariner 2 led the world to the planets
After five years of playing catch-up to the Soviet Union in space exploration, the United States has achieved its first bona fide "first" - the first successful flyby of another planet.
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mariner2/
View the 50th anniversary of planetary exploration interactive infographic
Explorer I
Take a step back in time and follow the historic story of how the United States responded to Sputnik, the world's first Earth-orbiting satellite launched by the Soviets in 1957. JPL designed and built -- and, in cooperation with the Army, launched -- Explorer 1, the first U.S. satellite and the first spacecraft ever to return scientific data from space.
PDF of the Explorer I story
Text Version
History of JPL
This site begins with JPL's early years in the 1930s and recounts the major historical moments for the Lab.
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/jplhistory/
JPL 101 (PDF 9.7Mb)
This online book provides an in-depth overview of JPL's history.
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/about_JPL/jpl101.pdf
40 Years of Exploration
A timeline that covers forty years of space exploration, beginning with the first spacecraft to fly past another planet. (1962 - 2002)
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/history/index.html
JPL Library
Resources for teachers
http://beacon.jpl.nasa.gov/
At the origin: In 1936 a team of Caltech students and researchers began rocket experiments at a rugged site that grew to become JPL.
About twice the size of California's Disneyland, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a 177-building campus situated in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. In addition to a mission control center and 9,600 square-foot clean room, the lab is home to a simulated Mars landscape called the Mars Yard, as well as a 25-foot space simulator. In the fall of 2009, JPL unveiled its newest building, the environmentally friendly Flight Projects Center, which houses missions during their design and development phases.
The Aquarius satellite, scheduled for launch in June 2011, will break new ground in the investigation of sea surface salinity, a major component of Earth climate studies. Just within a few months, Aquarius will collect as many sea surface salinity measurements as the entire 125-year historical record, offering a better understanding of the water cycle and ocean circulation, and providing an essential missing piece to the global climate change puzzle.
Launched in 2007, Dawn is the first spacecraft designed to orbit two different bodies after leaving Earth. In July 2011, it will arrive at the giant asteroid Vesta, which it will orbit before departing to reach the dwarf planet Ceres in 2015. The feat is enabled by Dawn's use of ion engines to gradually accelerate the spacecraft.
One of four JPL missions set to launch in 2011, the Juno spacecraft will study the giant gas planet Jupiter to help understand its origins and evolution. Because of its mass, Jupiter -- the largest planet in the solar system -- still holds much of its original composition. By investigating Jupiter's core, intense magnetic field, auroras and atmospheric composition, scientists hope to collect important clues about the formation of the solar system when Juno arrives at the planet in 2016.
Flying twin spacecraft in tandem orbits, the Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory, or GRAIL, mission will launch in September 2011 to measure the moon's gravity field in unprecedented detail. The mission will also answer longstanding mysteries about Earth's moon -- including the possible existence and composition of an inner core -- and the origins of the solar system.
Could Mars ever have hosted environments conducive to life? Mars Science Laboratory will look for answers when the flagship mission launches in fall 2011 taking the largest-ever rover, Curiosity, to the Red Planet. In addition to its science capabilities, the mission boasts innovations in landing and surface exploration technologies, which will allow its Curiosity to land more accurately and explore more terrain than ever before.
The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, will carry the first focusing hard X-ray telescope to study the evolution of massive black holes, supernova explosions and active galaxies. NuSTAR is planned for launch in spring 2012.
One of three antenna's across the globe, the Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, Calif. is key in communicating with and even controlling distant spacecraft and robots. The 70-meter-diameter (230-foot) dish is capable of interpreting even the tiniest spacecraft signals from millions of miles away. Together with antennas in Canberra, Australia, and Madrid, Spain, the Goldstone antenna is an essential communication portal for robotic spacecraft throughout the solar system.
Technologies originally developed for space missions often find their way to Earth to improve the quality of day-to-day life. As one example, JPL researchers have partnered with the City of Hope to explore the potential of carbon nanotubes -- used in various space applications to help produce electrons -- to diagnose and treat brain tumors. Initial studies on mice have shown that the tubes are an effective and non-toxic means of transporting cancer-fighting agents to the brain.
