LA CAÑADA FLINTRIDGE, Calif., July 19 — The Jet Propulsion Laboratory has been building and flying robotic spacecraft for eight decades, and it shows no signs of slowing. The bottom line: JPL currently operates seven major active missions — from the Perseverance rover on Mars to the Psyche asteroid orbiter — plus the worldwide Deep Space Network that talks to them all.
Founded in 1936 as the GALCIT Rocket Project by California Institute of Technology graduate students, the lab now sits on a campus in La Cañada Flintridge, owned by NASA and administered by Caltech. Its shift from a small rocket-testing site to a cornerstone of American planetary science took decades of focused engineering and a willingness to take risks that private capital wouldn’t touch.
A 1936 origin story that changed how we explore space
JPL’s roots trace to those first rocket experiments in the Arroyo Seco, where researchers conducted the first US rocket experiments. By 1941, the team had built working JATO rockets for the Army. In 1943, the project became the Jet Propulsion Laboratory — an Army facility.
During its Army years, JPL developed the MGM-5 Corporal and MGM-29 Sergeant tactical ballistic missiles, as well as prototype systems including the Loki anti-aircraft missile and the forerunner of the Aerobee sounding rocket. This missile work laid the engineering and organizational foundation for what would become a space exploration powerhouse.
In 1954, JPL teamed with Wernher von Braun’s team at Redstone Arsenal to propose orbiting a satellite, but lost to Project Vanguard; instead they conducted three successful sub-orbital flights in 1956-1957 for ablative re-entry technology using a Jupiter-C rocket.
By the numbers: A portfolio of active missions
JPL’s current mission manifest spans the inner solar system. On Mars: the Perseverance rover (Mars 2020), the Curiosity rover (Mars Science Laboratory), and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. At Jupiter: the Juno spacecraft.
In Earth orbit: the SMAP soil-moisture satellite and the NuSTAR X-ray telescope. Heading to the asteroid belt: the Psyche orbiter.
Separately, the lab manages the JPL Small-Body Database, which holds physical data and publications on every known small body in the solar system. The figure that matters for the lab’s long-term relevance is that data vault — a repository that preserves decades of scientific readings, allowing modern reprocessing of historic mission images. This capability means old data can yield new discoveries as processing techniques improve.
Two JPL facilities — the Space Flight Operations Facility and the Twenty-Five-Foot Space Simulator — hold National Historic Landmark designations, tangible markers of the lab’s contributions to aerospace history.
What to watch next
With Perseverance still collecting samples on Mars and Psyche bound for the asteroid belt, JPL’s workload shows no sign of easing. The Deep Space Network, which the lab operates for NASA, remains the backbone of communication for all deep-space missions. As more nations and private companies send probes beyond Earth orbit, the network’s capacity will become an increasingly valuable asset.
For now, the lab’s trajectory remains tied to robotic exploration and the steady accumulation of planetary science data that other centers simply can’t match.
