JPL BLOGS
Inside Views on Outer Space
Hear from scientists, engineers and other experts as they offer a fascinating look at JPL missions, science and history.
Slice of History | September 2, 2014
JPL Today With Al Hibbs
Before there was email, the JPL intranet, or streaming video to keep employees informed, Dr. Al Hibbs hosted a bi-weekly internal TV show to provide mission and technology updates, and discuss how current events affected JPL and NASA. It was shown on closed circuit televisions in the two cafeterias during breaks and lunch. At the time, the most common way of reaching all employees was to distribute hard copies of Universe, This Week, Director’s Letters, project status reports, and flyers.
Hibbs had worked at JPL since 1950 and was well known as the “Voice of JPL,” using his knowledge of engineering and science to explain complex concepts to the public during many of JPL’s planetary missions. In this 1980 photo, Hibbs (at left) talks to Rep. Don Fuqua of Florida, a member of the House of Representatives Science and Technology Committee.
This post was written for “Historical Photo of the Month,” a blog by Julie Cooper of JPL’s Library and Archives Group.
TAGS: HISTORY, TV, TECHNOLOGY, COMMUNICATIONS,
Slice of History | March 4, 2014
Plasma Flow Research Lab
In February 1964, the Plasma Flow Research Laboratory at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., was completed. It was located in Building 112 by the East Gate in what was once rocket motor test cell B. It included a 7-foot-by-14-foot stainless steel cylindrical vacuum chamber with port holes on the sides to view and photograph the tests. In this photo, Gary Russell, a group supervisor in the Propulsion Research Section, discusses the plasma facility with JPL Director William Pickering, Deputy Director Brian Sparks, Assistant Director for Research and Advanced Development Frank Goddard, and Propulsion Research Section Chief Don Bartz.
Lab-Oratory, the JPL employee newspaper, covered the opening of this new facility, describing how plasma can be generated by bodies entering an atmosphere at high speed and in the plasma lab by electrical discharge. The plasma facility at JPL could create thermally ionized gases at temperatures up to 30,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Findings from the plasma program were to be applied to power and propulsion devices, and Earth re-entry problems (thermal protection, communication blackout and electrical breakdown). This was a $1.6 million JPL task – part of the larger NASA plasma research and development program.
This post was written for “Historical Photo of the Month,” a blog by Julie Cooper of JPL's Library and Archives Group.
TAGS: HISTORY, TECHNOLOGY
Slice of History | February 18, 2014
Hailstone Research
In 1979, this test fixture was used to study how much damage would occur when a solar panel was hit with hail measuring 1/2 inch to 5 inches in diameter. The white tube is the hailgun barrel. Interchangeable barrels of various sizes matched the diameter of the “hail” or ice ball being tested. The solar panel was mounted on the ceiling of the test facility, and an air compressor provided the force to project hailstones upward at about the same velocity as a storm. In this photo, Lee Albers and Bill Peer of the Test and Mechanical Support Section at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory load an ice ball into the barrel.
Some of the same equipment was originally used to test possible hail damage in Deep Space Network antenna panels. In summer 1962, after similar tests were done at the South Africa Deep Space Station, a hailstorm simulation facility was developed at JPL to continue the study. The equipment included heated molds to form ice balls of various sizes and a chest freezer to keep them at 18 degrees Fahrenheit.
This post was written for “Historical Photo of the Month,” a blog by Julie Cooper of JPL's Library and Archives Group.
TAGS: HISTORY, TECHNOLOGY, SOLAR PANEL
Slice of History | January 7, 2014
Cassegrain Transmitter Cone
December 24, 2013, marked 50 years since the official beginning of the Deep Space Network. On that date in 1963, JPL Director William Pickering sent out a memo announcing that the Deep Space Instrumentation Facility, or DSIF, Interstation Communications, and the mission-independent portion of the Space Flight Operations Facility would be combined and renamed the Deep Space Network, or DSN. At that time, the DSIF already included five large antennas in California, Australia, and South Africa, to provide complete communications coverage as the Earth rotates.
The DSIF began with mobile tracking stations that were used to track the Explorer spacecraft, and in 1958 the first 85-foot (26 meter) antenna was built in the Mojave desert, at the Goldstone Tracking Station. As new communications technology developed, new antennas have been added to the DSN sites and existing antennas enlarged or modified to increase their capabilities. This photo shows a Cassegrain cone 100-kw transmitter developed for the 85-foot antenna at the Goldstone Venus site (DSS-13) in Goldstone, Calif. It was placed on a cone test elevator in the high-voltage power supply building at Goldstone and raised up high enough that the radiating feed horn on top of the cone was above the roof line of the building during tests. Development and testing was completed in time for it to be used in communicating with the Mariner 4 spacecraft that went to Mars.
This post was written for “Historical Photo of the Month,” a blog by Julie Cooper of JPL's Library and Archives Group.
TAGS: HISTORY, TECHNOLOGY, DEEP SPACE NETWORK
Slice of History | December 9, 2013
Spin Test
In August 1964, this test fixture was used by the Spacecraft Design Section at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., to study spin stabilization of spacecraft - in this case, Rangers 8 and 9 (part of the Ranger Block 3 design). Many spacecraft had used spin stability for attitude control during acceleration or thrust, and it was found that a slower spin provided better stability for the coasting phase.
One method of decreasing the spin of a spacecraft, or de-spinning, was the deployment of yo-yo devices. Weights were attached to rigid or stretch cords, then released while the fixture was spinning. The cords would unwind, like the arms of a figure skater extending to slow a spin, and then the cords were released. In this photo, the cables and weights can be seen, attached to the outside of the white circle. The test fixture is surrounded by what appear to be bales of paper and trash to absorb the impact of the weights when they were released from the spinning test fixture.
This post was written for “Historical Photo of the Month,” a blog by Julie Cooper of JPL’s Library and Archives Group.
TAGS: HISTORY, RANGER, SPACECRAFT, MISSION, SOLAR SYSTEM, TECHNOLOGY
Slice of History | November 4, 2013
Ranger Impact Limiter
This photo was taken in November 1960 to show the lightweight balsa wood impact limiter that was to be used in the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Ranger Block II spacecraft design (Rangers 3, 4, and 5). The woman holding the sphere is Systems Design secretary Pat McKibben. The sphere was 65 cm in diameter, and it surrounded a transmitter and a seismometer instrument that was designed by the Caltech Seismological Laboratory. The sphere would separate from the spacecraft shortly before impact and survive the rough landing on the moon. The capsule was also vacuum-filled with a protective fluid to reduce movement during impact. After landing, the instrument was to float to an upright position, then the fluid would be drained out so it could settle and switch on.
Due to a series of malfunctions in 1962, these three Ranger spacecraft either crashed without returning data or missed the moon. In July 1964, the first successful Ranger spacecraft, Ranger 7, reached the moon and transmitted more than 4,000 images to Earth.
This post was written for “Historical Photo of the Month,” a blog by Julie Cooper of JPL's Library and Archives Group.
TAGS: RANGER, SPACECRAFT, HISTORY, TECHNOLOGY, MISSION,
Slice of History | September 3, 2013
Mariner 4 Television Experiment Team
Because the data return rate from Mariner 4 was very low, the Mariner 4 Television Experiment Team spent hours waiting for each new image to appear. In this photo they are waiting for the first picture from Mars. Mariner eventually returned 22 images. From left to right: Robert Nathan (NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory), Bruce Murray (associate professor of planetary science), Robert Sharp (Caltech), Robert Leighton (principal investigator), and Clayton La Baw (JPL).
Murray had been a member of the Caltech faculty for about five years when this photo was taken in July 1965. He went on to replace William Pickering as Director of JPL in 1976, retired from that position in 1982, and returned to Caltech.
This post was written for “Historical Photo of the Month,” a blog by Julie Cooper of JPL's Library and Archives Group.
TAGS: MARINER, TV, TECHNOLOGY, HISTORY, MARS, SOLAR SYSTEM, MISSION, SPACECRAFT
Slice of History | May 8, 2013
Infrared Ear Thermometer
In 1991, Diatek Corporation of San Diego put a new infrared thermometer - Model 7000 - on the market. Early electronic thermometers had been used by some hospitals and doctors' offices for several years before that time, but this Diatek model was a pioneering effort to modify space-based infrared sensors for a medical infrared thermometer. The underlying technology was developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., for missions including the Infrared Astronomical Satellite, or IRAS. IRAS measured the temperature of stars and planets by reading the infrared radiation emitted from them, while the thermometer almost instantly determined body temperature by measuring the energy emitted from the eardrum - quite an advancement in medical technology. Diatek was part of the JPL Technology Affiliates Program, or TAP, in the late 1980s and received help from JPL personnel in adapting infrared sensor technology to this new product.
This post was written for “Historical Photo of the Month,” a blog by Julie Cooper of JPL's Library and Archives Group.
TAGS: HISTORY, TECHNOLOGY
Slice of History | April 3, 2013
100 Kilogauss Magnet
An intense magnetic field facility was completed in 1964 by the Physics Section of the Space Sciences Division at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It was intended for use in studying superconductors, spectroscopy and new materials, and in other experiments where a wider range of measurements was possible because of the high magnetic field. This photo shows the magnet at center. The system also included a control room, cooling tower, pumps and a heat exchanger. The generator was located in a separate room because of the noise. Water was pumped through the magnet at about 440 gallons per minute, to regulate the temperature of the large copper coil in the center of the magnet. The closed loop system contained distilled water with sodium nitrite for corrosion control.
According to a technical report about the facility, the magnetic field of the magnet and bus bars penetrated nearby rooms to a depth of about 30 feet. Any iron that could be attracted to the magnet had to be removed from the area.
This post was written for “Historical Photo of the Month,” a blog by Julie Cooper of JPL's Library and Archives Group.
TAGS: HISTORY, TECHNOLOGY,
Slice of History | March 31, 2013
Analytical Chemistry Lab
In 1952, the majority of the 1,000 employees at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory were men, and most of the women working on lab were in clerical positions. There were some exceptions, such as the women of the Computing Section, and three women who had technical positions in the Analytical Chemistry Laboratory. In addition to chemist Lois Taylor, seen in this photo, Julia Shedlesky also worked as a chemist and Luz Trent was a lab technician. Taylor began working at JPL in 1946. The Chemistry Section was involved in the development of new solid and liquid propellants, propellant evaluations and general studies on combustion processes in motors.
This post was written for “Historical Photo of the Month,” a blog by Julie Cooper of JPL's Library and Archives Group.
TAGS: HISTORY, TECHNOLOGY, WOMEN