Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Mark Humphrey The Jet Propulsion Laboratory has always been pioneering -- parachuting a fragile rover onto Mars and recently crashing a satellite into a comet with the Deep Impact program. Now, the organization's celestial accomplishments have been honored on terra firma with the NASA and JPL 50th Anniversary Commemorative Coin Act, which passed Tuesday in the House of Representatives. "With Deep Impact's recent success, which follows so many of their other successful ventures, the timing couldn't be better to honor the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's fine work," said Rep. Adam Schiff, a Democrat who co-sponsored the bill with Rep. John Culberson, a Republican from Texas.

There's a reason why robots have to be sent to Mars before humans, and Jet Propulsion Laboratory is hosting a lecture Thursday for all those interested in finding out why. The lecture will be given by the director of JPL's Mars Exploration Program, Firouz Naderi. It will focus on the robotic exploration of Mars, the goals and discoveries of the current Mars program and future plans. The lecture begins at 7 p.m. in the von Karman Auditorium at JPL, 4800 Oak Grove Drive.

Skaar -- Floyd Jeanette F. Skaar, the daughter of Otto F. and Fernanda Skaar of Panama City, Fla., and Brian Floyd, the son of Elmer and Janet Floyd of La Crescenta, have announced their engagement. The bride-to-be graduated from Crescenta Valley High School in 1978 and attended Glendale Community College. She is an actress. The groom-to-be graduated from Crescenta Valley High School in 1977. He attended Pasadena City College and graduated from Cal State Northridge with a degree in liberal arts.

Marshall Allen LA CANADA FLINTRIDGE -- The challenges of exploring Mars will be the subject of an upcoming lecture at Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Roger Gibbs, JPL's Mars Odyssey project manager, will give a free lecture on Mars exploration at 7 tonight at JPL's von Karman auditorium, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, La Canada Flintridge. The presentation will focus on the success of the Mars Odyssey, and how learning from past mistakes assured the Odyssey spacecraft arrived on time and on target into Mars orbit in October.

Pictures and descriptions of NASA and Jet Propulsion Laboratory missions, including views of space as seen by heat-detecting infrared cameras and telescopes, can be seen from Aug. 1 to 31 at the Pasadena Public Library, 285 East Walnut St., Pasadena. The library's hours are 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday; 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday; and 1 to 5 p.m. Sundays. The exhibit will also include photos of animals in visible and infrared light and displays explaining infrared technology and how it helps JPL scientists penetrate cosmic dust to see distant stars and galaxies.

Nancy Schmuecker, a longtime La Crescenta resident, passed away peacefully at her home Oct. 22 from complications related to multiple sclerosis. In her younger years, Nancy was active in the La Cañada Cooperative Nursery School that her three children attended, and later was a leader in the Pasadena Wellesley College Club and Glendale Junior Philharmonic group that supports the Los Angeles Symphony. She was a history major at Wellesley and later received her master's degree in gerontology from University of Southern California.

Watching through Rover was like walking on Mars It was only a year ago that my family, relatives and friends were gathered at my house in great anticipation of watching the landing of the Spirit rover on Mars. First, there was the atmospheric entry; next, the descent via parachute; and then, the bouncing touchdown on Mars. Everyone was glued to the television, waiting to hear news from mission control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. We eagerly waited for the rover Spirit to start out on its first robotic journey on the surface of Mars.

ROBERT JOHN 'BOB' PLUMMER Robert John "Bob" Plummer, 73, a longtime La Crescenta resident, died Jan. 15, 2003. Mr. Plummer was born April 10, 1929, in Bangor, Maine. He graduated from Siena College in New York, and worked as an aerospace engineer at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, TRW and Hughes Aircraft. After retiring, he and his wife raised dogs for the blind through Guide Dogs of America. He is survived by his wife, Marlene; brother, Philip; son, Mark; daughters, Kathleen Thoene and Diane Paulson; step-children, Sara Rector, Andrea Diamond, Seth Pollman and Russ Pollman; 15 grandchildren; and Labrador, Coral.

Tim Willert President George W. Bush might have stolen his thunder Wednesday, but the nation's second explorer-in-chief received a hearty welcome at Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Hours after Bush announced plans to return Americans to the moon and beyond, Vice President Dick Cheney was cheered by hundreds of JPL employees basking in the success of the Mars exploration program. "The president and I appreciate the outstanding work performed by everyone here at the JPL," Cheney told 1,500 employees after touring the Mars mission-control area.

Robert Chacon Rosaly Lopes, a planetary scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, was awarded the 2005 Carl Sagan Medal for Excellence in Public Communications, acknowledging her outreach efforts. Lopes, a principal investigation scientist for the Titan radar mapper on the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and its moon, Titan, has been active in reaching out to the global community since joining the Galileo mission team in 1991, spokeswoman Annie Carone said.

For more than three months now, engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have been unable to free the Martian rover Spirit from a patch of powdery soil that has ensnared the golf cart-sized machine since May 6. Engineers have been troubleshooting with a prototype in an effort to find some way of dislodging the rover. On June 30, engineers filled an elevated ramp full of soil that simulated the Martian terrain in which Spirit has found itself embedded. “It is a very difficult problem,” said John Callus, project manager for Spirit and its twin rover, Opportunity.

LA CAÑADA — Engineers at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Tuesday filled a ramp full of powdery earth and slowly rolled a test rover onto the geological cocktail as they tried to simulate the rover Spirit’s unfortunate circumstance on Mars. Since May 6, the golf cart-sized Spirit has been embedded in an area on the west side of what scientists have named “Home Plate” on Mars. The rover’s wheels can still rotate but slip in the soft soil, so engineers won’t move it until they work out an extraction plan on Earth.

?Curiosity is an everlasting flame that burns in everyone?s mind.? That is how 12-year-old Clara Ma?s winning essay began and how she went from a normal sixth-grader at Sunflower Elementary School in Lenexa, Kan., to the star of the Mars Yard at Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Clara won the Name the Rover essay contest and on Monday was introduced to the engineers and scientists who built and will control the Mars Science Laboratory rover, now named ?Curiosity.? The rover is scheduled to launch in October 2011.

The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on June 4 denied a petition to reconsider a 2008 decision to grant a preliminary injunction protecting Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists and engineers from being required to submit to a Bush administration Homeland Security background check established five years ago. The case was filed in 2007 by 28 JPL employees after they were told they would have to submit to an extensive background check that could...

On Jan. 15, Jet Propulsion Laboratory had a celebration that was five years in the making. Scientists, engineers and rover enthusiasts joined together in the von Karman Auditorium to celebrate the fifth anniversary of its twin rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, in exploring Mars. John Callas, JPL rover project manager, talked about the rovers’ success and shared in the celebration. In an interview with Valley Sun, Callas said the greatest challenge was landing on Mars. “I thought if we were able to survive the first winter we would survive for a number of years,” Callas said.

NASA announced yesterday that the launch of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) would be delayed for two years due to technical problems. The timing of a Martian launch is crucial, said Charles Elachi, director of Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge. MSL is managed by JPL. The mission was pushed back from fall of 2009 to 2011. The delay will add two years to the back end of the mission, for a scheduled completion in 2014. ?The team is disappointed, but what I admire about [them]

The robotics team at Clark Magnet High School, the Circuit Breakers, learned Wednesday about the Mars Exploration Rover mission at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, but the final product from the students’ visit may not be finished for years, when a national mural project is installed in a former mill town in Connecticut. The robotics team is one of a handful of student groups across the country helping to create the American Mural Project under the guidance of artist Ellen Griesedieck.

  Ten Years Ago Pastor James W. Page, interim pastor of Gethsemane Lutheran Church in La Crescenta, conducted the invocation at a meeting of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and was presented a certificate of appreciation by county Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich.   Twenty Years Ago An early November rainfall that dumped more than 2 inches of the wet stuff (and a dusting of snow to the mountains) brought the season-to-date total — beginning Oct. 1, 1987 — to nearly the same amount of moisture that had fallen the entire previous year.

For almost 20 years JPL's annual Open House has attracted visitors from all over Southern California and beyond. Each area of exploration, from Earth science to outside our own galaxy, is represented not only with pictures and models but also by experts who can answer any and all questions. For example, at the "Ask A Martian" booth at the Mars exhibit at the open house last weekend questions ranged from: "Is their life on Mars?" to "How does JPL prepare the equipment to explore so far away?"

Usually when Dr. Charles Elachi speaks on the future at JPL everyone's eyes are cast to the stars, but on Monday all feet were planted on terra firma as a groundbreaking ceremony was held for their first new building on the campus in 25 years. Before the first shovel of dirt was turned, JPL employees listened to dignitaries, politicians and their boss, Elachi, speak on what the building will mean to the facility. Richard O'Toole, executive manager, JPL Office of Legislative Affairs, told the audience the six-story, $63 million building will be a space center that offers, among other benefits, four electronic conference rooms on each floor.