JPL Celebrates 80 Years of Scientific Exploration

Today marks the 80^th anniversary of the founding of JPL, which traces its roots to a small band of young experimenters who started testing their handmade rocket engines in Pasadena's Arroyo Seco on Halloween day in 1936. The crew initially came together at Caltech, with the core group consisting of Frank Malina (MS '35, MS '36, PhD '40), a graduate student who worked for Theodore von Kármán, director of what was then the Daniel Guggenheim Laboratory of Aeronautics (now known as GALCIT), and two local self-taught rocket enthusiasts, Jack Parsons and Edward Forman.

For more on the Lab's commemoration of its years of space exploration, visit "No Balloons for JPL's Birthday, Just a Satelloon."