NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, is one of NASAs most active facilities when it comes to building and operating unmanned space probes. It's the home base of a swarm of NASA's scientific missions, including the completed Cassini mission to Saturn, the Dawn mission to Ceres, the Juno mission to Jupiter, the InSight mission to Mars and the OCO-2 mission studying Earth’s climate change.
JPL offers free tours of its facilities to members of the public, which includes a stop by the visitor center, home to a beautiful display tracing the history of NASA's exploration of the various planets, moons and other major bodies in the solar system. Visitors may also see the Space Flight Operations Facility and the Spacecraft Assembly Facility.
Keep in mind that tours must be reserved at least three weeks in advance, and that tours fill up two to three months in advance. The JPL tour website advises guests to check back in early August for tour availability in January 2019. Tours can be booked for individuals and small groups, large groups over 20 people, and school groups. Tours are generally held at 1 p.m. and last between 2 and 2.5 hours. JPL also opens its doors to the public for special events.
You might also consider stopping in on one of JPL's free lecture series, which bring "the excitement of the space program's missions, instruments and other technologies" to JPL employees and the public. These free lectures are open to the public and no reservations are required, but seating is limited, so arrive early. Each talk is delivered twice — once on Thursday night and once on Friday night, typically at 7 p.m. The talks take place at different locations, so be sure to check the website.
Visitors can also stop by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), which founded JPL. The two institutions work closely together on NASA missions, and Caltech is home to five NASA facilities, including those that manage the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR).
Check the Caltech tours page for information about self-guided campus tours, as well as architectural tours, and high school student and prospective student tours. The school also hosts public events. Check the public events calendar to find out about other events.
JPL is about an hour outside Los Angeles, which is home to the California Science Center, a massive science museum with lots of hands-on exhibits and space-related attractions, including the space shuttle Endeavour. To find out more about seeing a space shuttle this summer, check out our list of best summer vacation destinations for space fans.
JPL is also three hours away from Vandenberg Air Force Base, where you can see a rocket launch this summer.
NEXT: Langley Research Center and the Virginia Air and Space Center
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