The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) in La Cañada Flintridge, California, Crescenta Valley, United States.

It is also responsible for managing the JPL Small-Body Database, and provides physical data and lists of publications for all known small Solar System bodies.

JPL traces its beginnings to 1936 in GALCIT (the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology) when the first set of United States rocket experiments were carried out in the Arroyo Seco.

[5] This initial venture involved Caltech graduate students Frank Malina, Qian Xuesen,[6][7] Weld Arnold[8] and Apollo M. O. Smith, along with Jack Parsons and Edward S. Forman, often referred to as the "Suicide Squad" due to the dangerous nature of their experiments.

[14] In 1954, JPL teamed up with Wernher von Braun's engineers at the Army Ballistic Missile Agency's Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, to propose orbiting a satellite during the International Geophysical Year.

[19] As a result of this transition, JPL became the agency's primary planetary spacecraft center, leading the design and operation of various lunar and interplanetary missions.

JPL proved itself a leader in interplanetary exploration with the Mariner missions to Venus, Mars, and Mercury, returning valuable data about our neighboring planets.

Both Voyager spacecraft, after fulfilling their primary mission objectives, were directed towards interstellar space, carrying with them the Golden Records – phonograph discs containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life on Earth.

[30] Although the probe only entered the gas giant's orbit in the 1990s, its inception and planning during the 1980s signified JPL's continued commitment to deep space exploration.

JPL also opened the Near-Earth Object Program Office for NASA in 1998, which had found 95% of asteroids a kilometer or more in diameter that cross Earth's orbit by 2013.

In January 2025, JPL was closed and evacuated due to the Eaton Fire raging in the nearby towns of Pasadena and Altadena, with operations like the DSN getting relocated offsite.

[45] When it was founded, JPL's site was immediately west of a rocky flood-plain – the Arroyo Seco riverbed – above the Devil's Gate dam in the northwestern panhandle of the city of Pasadena in Southern California, near Los Angeles.

Nowadays, most of the 168 acres (68 ha) of the U.S. federal government-owned NASA property that makes up the JPL campus is located in La Cañada Flintridge.

Interns are sponsored through NASA programs, university partnerships and JPL mentors for research opportunities at the laboratory in areas including technology, robotics, planetary science, aerospace engineering, and astrophysics.

[54] The JPL Education Office also hosts the Planetary Science Summer School (PSSS), an annual week-long workshop for graduate and postdoctoral students.

The lab had an open house once a year on a Saturday and Sunday in May or June, when the public was invited to tour the facilities and see live demonstrations of JPL science and technology.

[62] Roboticist and Mars rover driver Vandi Verma frequently acts as science communicator at open house type events to encourage children (and particularly girls) into STEM careers.

Aside from NASA, JPL secures funding for specialized projects from other federal agencies, including but not limited to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) the United States Geological Survey (USGS), and the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD).

While these partnerships contribute a relatively small portion of JPL's overall budget, they serve to enhance the scope and impact of its scientific research and technological development.

The total budget for JPL is subject to annual fluctuations based on both the federal allocation to NASA and the life cycle of ongoing projects.

Although these projects form a smaller part of JPL's overall budget, they are integral to fulfilling the diverse set of objectives that these federal agencies oversee.

On August 30, 2007, a group of JPL employees filed suit in federal court against NASA, Caltech, and the Department of Commerce, claiming their constitutional rights were being violated by the new, overly invasive background investigations.

[99] The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found the process violated the employees' privacy rights and issued a preliminary injunction.

On January 19, 2011, the Supreme Court overturned the Ninth Circuit decision, ruling that the background checks did not violate any constitutional privacy right that the employees may have had.

[101] On March 12, 2012, the Los Angeles Superior Court took opening statements on the case in which former JPL employee David Coppedge brought suit against the lab due to workplace discrimination and wrongful termination.

Conversely, JPL, through the Caltech lawyers representing the laboratory, allege that Coppedge's termination was simply due to budget cuts and his demotion from team lead was because of harassment complaints and from on-going conflicts with his co-workers.