EVENTS For information on JPL tours and the speakers bureau, visit our PUBLIC SERVICES site. The Solar System Ambassador Program sponsors events in communities around the country. Find out how to become a volunteer Solar System Ambassador.		Topic - Small Landers and Aerobots Big Things Come in Small Packages: Mission Concepts Potentially Enabled by Small-RPS Technology Presented by Robert Dean Abelson JPL Near Earth Mission Architecture Group The von Karman Lecture series webcast archive is temporarily unavailable. Thank you for your patience.   Thursday, March 17 The von Kármán Auditorium at JPL 4800 Oak Grove Drive Pasadena, CA For directions, click here. Friday, March 18 The Vosloh Forum at Pasadena City College 1570 East Colorado Blvd. Pasadena, CA For directions, click here. Both lectures begin at 7 p.m. PST and run for approximately an hour. Admission is free. Seating is limited. For more information, call (818) 354-0112. The increased use of smaller spacecraft over the last decade, in combination with studies of potential science applications, has suggested the need for radioisotope power systems (RPSs) yielding much lower power levels than the 100-watt-scale devices used in the past. First used in space by the United States in 1961, RPSs convert the heat released from the nuclear decay of radioactive isotopes into electricity, and are long-lived, rugged, compact, highly reliable, and relatively insensitive to radiation and other space environmental effects. They can operate continuously, independent of orientation to and distance from the Sun. Small-scale RPS units have the potential to extend the capability of small science payloads and instruments and to enable new mission applications, finding use in future human exploration missions involving monitoring stations and autonomous devices. This presentation will summarize mission studies results and technology development activities to date, and activities planned for the future. To learn more about nano-technology click here.