JPL’s Journey from. Missiles to Space

Pride in accomplishment is not a self-sufficient safeguard when
undertaking large scale projects of international significance.

— Kelley Board, after Ranger 5 failure

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), located in Pasadena, California, and managed by the California Institute of Technology, began as a graduate stu­dent rocket project in the late 1930s and developed into the world’s leading institution for planetary space flight. Between 1949 and 1960, JPL transformed itself twice: first, from a small research organization to a large engineering de­velopment institution, and second, from an organization devoted to military rocketry to one focusing on scientific spacecraft.1

JPL’s academic researchers did not initially recognize the many differences between a hand-crafted research vehicle and a mass-produced, easily oper­ated weapon, or highly reliable planetary probes. The switch from research to development required strict attention to thousands of details. Properly build­ing and integrating thousands of components was not an academic problem but an organizational issue. JPL’s engineering researchers learned to become design engineers, and in so doing some of them became systems engineers.

Learning systems engineering on tactical ballistic missiles, JPL managers and engineers modified missile practices to design and operate spacecraft. The most significant missile practices that carried over to spacecraft were organizational: component testing and reliability as well as procedures for change control. A few JPL managers learned these lessons quickly. However, it

took a number of embarrassing failures for JPL’s academically oriented engi­neers and managers to accept the structured methods of systems manage­ment.

JPL independently recreated processes that the air force developed on its ballistic missile programs: systems engineering, project management, and configuration control. The history of the two organizations shows that the processes were the result of not individual idiosyncrasies but larger technical and social forces.