Updated 7:15 p.m. Eastern with comment from Rep. Chu. MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced Feb. 6 it will lay off 530 employees, about 8% of its staff, citing uncertainty about its budget for 2024. In a statement, JPL said it would lay off about 530 employees, […]
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NEW ORLEANS — NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory laid off 100 contractors last week because of potential sharp budget cuts to the Mars Sample Return (MSR) program and warned that more layoffs could come. A JPL spokesperson confirmed Jan. 7 that the center laid off the contractors and took other measures, […]
WASHINGTON — NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is making progress addressing institutional problems that led to the delay of an asteroid mission, the lab’s director says. Speaking at a meeting last week of the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group (MEPAG), Laurie Leshin, who took over as director of JPL last May, […]
Olivier Toupet, principal software engineer at Zoox, started his career as an aerospace engineer.Olivier Toupet Olivier Toupet started his career working on autonomous helicopters. The former supervisor at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab now works at AV startup Zoox. Here’s his story, as told to the reporter Alexa St. John. This […]
WASHINGTON — An independent review of problems that delayed the launch of NASA’s Psyche asteroid mission uncovered institutional issues at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory that led the agency to delay the launch of another mission being developed there. NASA released Nov. 4 the report by an independent review board commissioned […]
In May, a new director took the reins of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The storied lab is home to many milestone-making spacecraft that have plumbed our solar system, but not without some missteps along the way. Laurie Leshin, Jet Propulsion Laboratory director. Credit: JPL Laurie Leshin is […]
WASHINGTON — A planetary scientist and university president will be the next person, and first woman, to run NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The California Institute of Technology announced Jan. 27 that it selected Laurie Leshin to be the next director of JPL, which the university operates for NASA as a […]
SAN FRANCISCO — Microsoft is working with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to speed up the process for scheduling communications with distant spacecraft through NASA’s Deep Space Network. Scheduling communications for spacecraft that rely on the Deep Space Network is becoming increasingly difficult. JPL receives several hundred weekly requests to relay […]