Flying the Satellites of JPL

The only space shuttle launch I ever covered blew apart over Cape Canaveral. Any thrill attached to blasting humans into space was lost for me as shards of the Challenger tumbled into the sea. I became a believer in NASA’s principal alternative for space exploration--the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and its far-flung satellites.

JPL is tucked into the San Gabriel foothills behind Pasadena. The only architectural feature that distinguishes the facility from a state college campus is a huge satellite dish. Not many people seem aware that JPL is there, or what it is about. Point it out to visitors from the Foothill Freeway and they’ll nod their heads in feigned interest, and then resume lookout for the Rose Bowl.

Still, the lab is one of those institutions that make California special. There is an outlandishness to both its scale and mission. A part of Caltech, JPL is focused primarily on NASA projects and has evolved into something of a Disneyland for science wizards--a place where 7,500 physicists, engineers, computer programmers and others come each day to steer automated spacecraft through the solar system and beyond.

Monday was a big day. A JPL satellite designed to measure oceans with new precision, making it possible perhaps to predict El Nino and other weather phenomena, was to be launched from South America on a French rocket. Many of the JPL scientists had spent the last 10 years preparing for this mission. By day’s end, they might see their $400-million baby blown to bits, or marooned in space with faulty equipment. Or they might see it work.

“No, I’m not nervous,” the project chief said, cracking knuckles and pulling on fingers as he spoke.

Each NASA outpost has its own personality. At Houston, home to the astronauts, the ambience is that of a fighter pilot wing--heavy on cowboy boots and a ride-that-muther kind of attitude. Florida reminds me of a Southern stock car racetrack, all speed and showbiz. At JPL, the feel is less “The Right Stuff” and more “Revenge of the Nerds.” You see more scruffed sneakers and beards than at other NASA facilities, although I must admit that in a full day I did not spot a single pocket protector.

“We are seen by the others in NASA as being, you know, screwy scientists, of not quite having our feet on the ground,” said Bob Mitchell, manager of JPL’s mission design section. In Mitchell’s section, not quite having their feet on the ground has allowed scientists to figure out how to whip satellites through the solar system from one planet to the next, using only gravitational pull for power.

Instead of John Glenns and Neil Armstrongs, JPL’s heroes tend to be scientists with unfamiliar names--and, of course, the satellites themselves. Its small museum displays models of Ranger, Mariner, Viking, Voyager. Odd-shaped contraptions, they look like they belong in the garages of weekend metal sculptors.

Wandering about the lab, I heard plenty of talk about practical applications of JPL science, and the merits of automated over manned flight programs. JPL scientists tend to yawn when the shuttle is mentioned. “I don’t know,” one told me, “it would be like running an airline.” At the same time, it is understood, however begrudgingly, that a basic political calculus drives NASA: The spectacle of astronauts lashed atop violent rockets creates public interest, and without it there would be no political support, no taxpayer money, no shuttle, no satellites, no nothing.

As launch approached, the JPL employees gathered at television sets tuned to NASA’s closed-circuit channel, which broadcasts mission updates, management announcements and the like through the day. There was banter at first and then a nervous quiet. “They’re going to do it,” someone shouted excitedly in the final seconds. And so they did.

As the rocket climbed, the mission scientists scurried back to their computers. The lab would take control of the spacecraft eight minutes after launch, essentially flying it from Pasadena. In one tiny cubicle, three members of the Attitude Control Team watched nervously on video display terminals as the satellite came to life, piece by piece.

“We’ve got yaw,” one announced. “There’s RTS. . . . Still waiting for solar boom deploy. Come on deploy. Show me deploy.”

Everything seemed to be working fine. No careers would be destroyed this day. On the television overhead, the NASA channel already had cut away from the launch and back to footage from a previous shuttle flight. There were shots of weightless astronauts catching water droplets in a blanket, playing paddle ball. “That’s quite an experiment,” one of the JPL scientists observed sarcastically, looking up. Then he went back to flying his satellite.