Jet Propulsion Laboratory

JPL built some of America’s early supersonic wind tunnels, all of which were designed to investigate the aerodynamics of flight at Mach 1 or greater, ultimately including hypervelocity entry into the atmospheres of other planets. Under NASA, its role shifted to emphasize the design, construction, and operation of robotic vehicles for space and planetary exploration. Having redefined the laboratory’s mission, NASA phased out what remained of JPL’s propulsion research, and its wind tunnels were ultimately disassembled and shipped to other NASA centers, or scrapped, during the 1980s.