Saturday, October 10, 2026

NASA’s JPL Opens Doors for 90th Anniversary Celebration

CITY NEWS SERVICE

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory will open its doors to pre-ticketed visitors Saturday for a two-day event celebrating its 90th anniversary, offering a look at the facilities and technology used to explore the solar system and beyond.

The popular “Explore JPL” open house will be held from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at the laboratory’s campus at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains, according to JPL officials.

Visitors will have an opportunity to see spacecraft models and learn about robotics, space exploration and other technology developed at the laboratory.

Admission is free, but all tickets for the event were distributed Aug. 29, according to JPL.

The event will feature four themed areas: Missions That Changed the World, Moon to Mars, In Flight and Makerspace.

Among the highlights will be visits to the Space Flight Operations Facility, a National Historic Landmark where engineers send commands to and receive data from spacecraft billions of miles from Earth.

Visitors will also be able to learn about the Spacecraft Assembly Facility and JPL Machine Shop, where precision components for robotic spacecraft are manufactured.

Robotics exhibits will showcase innovations ranging from autonomous lunar rovers to search-and-rescue robots, while full-scale models of the Perseverance Mars rover and the Voyager and Galileo spacecraft will be on display, officials said.

The event will also provide access to the Microdevices Laboratory, where scientists and engineers develop miniature technologies for space exploration and Earth science.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, traces its origins to rocket propulsion research that began in 1936.

The laboratory helped build and launch Explorer 1, the first U.S. satellite, in 1958. Later that year, NASA was established, and JPL became part of the federal space agency.

Since then, the laboratory has managed numerous missions, including Voyager, Galileo, Cassini, the Mars Exploration Rover program, Perseverance and Europa Clipper.

For those unable to attend, a virtual tour of the laboratory is available at jpl.nasa.gov/virtual-tour.