Exploration and Engineering: The Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Quest for Mars

Getting to Mars required engineering genius, scientific strategy, and the drive to persevere in the face of failure.

Although the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, has become synonymous with the United States’ planetary exploration during the past half century, its most recent focus has been on Mars. Beginning in the 1990s and continuing through the Mars Phoenix mission of 2007, JPL led the way in engineering an impressive, rapidly evolving succession of Mars orbiters and la...