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JPL 90 years: NASA lab marks anniversary with SkyFall, MoonFall and NISAR on its slate

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NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is marking JPL 90 years since a group of Caltech graduate students and friends carried out rocket tests in Pasadena’s Arroyo Seco on 31 October 1936, the lab said on 21 October 2026, as it laid out the missions it plans next.

JPL 90 years: A collage showing the first rocket firing in 1936 and later JPL missions
A collage showing the first rocket firing in 1936 and later JPL missions Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech (public domain).

JPL 90 years: from Explorer 1 to Mars helicopters

Initially a contractor for the U.S. Army, JPL launched America’s first satellite, Explorer 1, in 1958, and its Geiger counter discovered the radiation belts around Earth. The lab became part of the new NASA that year and in 1964 sent Ranger 7 to the Moon. It went on to lead the first planetary flyby, the first probe to visit all four gas giants, the first rovers on Mars and the first rotorcraft to fly there. “Over the course of 90 years, JPL’s first-of-a-kind missions have transformed our understanding of the universe,” said director Dave Gallagher, who in 1992 led the team that built Hubble’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. JPL is managed by Caltech for NASA. The lab is based in Pasadena, California.

Key Facts

  • Founded from rocket tests on 31 October 1936
  • First US satellite: Explorer 1, 1958
  • Next: SkyFall and MoonFall (2028), SunRISE (2027)
  • India link: NISAR, joint mission with ISRO
  • Voyager 1 at one light-day: 18 November 2026

SkyFall, MoonFall and NISAR on the slate

Aiming for a 2028 launch, SkyFall will drop three helicopters during descent to Mars to map hidden ice and study weather, NASA said. MoonFall will land large propulsive drones at the lunar south pole the same year. SunRISE, set for 2027, will fly six small satellites in formation to study the Sun, and NEO Surveyor will hunt hazardous asteroids. On Earth science, JPL helps lead NISAR, the joint NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar mission that tracks surface changes linked to natural disasters, and its Microdevices Laboratory, which invented “camera on a chip” technology, is building detectors for the PRIMA far-infrared mission. Closer to home, the lab that launched the first oceanographic satellite in 1978 is working on Earth missions to track the movement of water through tiny changes in gravity, study how powerful tropical storms form, and detail how different types of air pollution affect health. The airborne AVIRIS sensors, developed at JPL, can even detect rare earth elements.

Voyager 1 nears a light-day from Earth

The anniversary comes weeks before Voyager 1 reaches a full light-day from Earth on 18 November, about 26 billion km, NASA said. The two Voyagers, which turn 50 next year, rely on NASA’s Deep Space Network, developed by JPL in the Apollo era. Caltech president Ray Jayawardhana said the same spirit of daring that drove the students in a dry riverbed is still opening new frontiers. Ed Stone led the Voyager mission for 50 years.

Why It Matters: JPL runs many of NASA's robotic missions, including NISAR with ISRO, so its plans shape what scientists in India and elsewhere will get from space in the next decade.

Also on TrendDesh: Mars helicopter blades redesigned by NASA could stretch single flights from 0.7 km to 18.7 km · Thwaites Glacier could add twice as much to sea level rise as some projections, NASA-backed study finds

Source: NASA JPL, 21 Oct 2026 · NASA JPL · NISAR mission

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