Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, research facility in Pasadena, Calif. The laboratory, which is operated by the California Institute of Technology under the aegis of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), pioneered the development of space probes for the United States. These included the first unmanned crafts to survey the moon and land on its surface in the 1950s and 1960s. Other probes developed there explored the solar system and flew close enough to some of the outer planets to photograph them, thus providing valuable data.

See also: Jet propulsion.