Celebrating its 90th anniversary this year, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory invites the public to its campus at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains in Southern California for an open-house event, Explore JPL. On Oct. 10 and 11, from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. PDT, visitors will get the chance to visit JPL’s most iconic facilities and explore four thematic areas: Missions That Changed the World, Moon to Mars, In Flight, and Makerspace.
Tickets are free but very limited and have gone quickly for past Explore JPL events. They will be available on the Explore JPL webpage at 9 a.m. PDT Sunday, Aug. 29, and will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis, with a maximum of five tickets per requestor. Orders for more than five tickets may be subject to cancellation. Tickets will be provided for specific time slots and must be reserved for specific names. Attendees will not be admitted to JPL before the designated time printed on their ticket.
A division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, JPL traces its origins to rocket-propulsion development in 1936. By 1958, the lab had built and helped launch America’s first satellite, Explorer 1. That same year, Congress established NASA, and JPL became a part of the agency. Since then, JPL has managed such historic missions as Voyager, Galileo, Cassini, the Mars Exploration Rover program, the Perseverance Mars rover, Europa Clipper, and many more.
Among other highlights, Explore JPL guests will get to:
Visit JPL’s legendary Space Flight Operations Facility, a Nati …