2010 JPL Open House

 

May 17, 2010 - Nearly 40,000 people attended the 2010 JPL Open House event, themed "Worlds Beyond," which featured displays and demonstrations from numerous space missions, and a first look at JPL's recently renovated von Karman Visitor Center.

On special display was the JPL-built Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, retrieved from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope last year by space-walking astronauts. The instrument, affectionately known as the "Camera that Saved Hubble," is on loan from the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum. The camera captured many of Hubble's iconic space images.

Other Open House highlights included: seeing JPL's next spacecraft bound for Mars, Mars Science Laboratory, under construction in the lab's largest "clean room;" life-size rover models in a "Mars" test bed; and JPL's Microdevices Lab, where engineers and scientists use tiny technology to revolutionize space exploration. Visitors also saw the sun through solar-safe telescopes, and learned how NASA instruments help scientists better understand global climate change.