This archival image was released as part of a gallery comparing JPL's past and present, commemorating the 80th anniversary of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Oct. 31, 2016. This aerial image of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory was taken in September 1950, when the lab's main patron was the U.S. Army. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA21116

This archival image was released as part of a gallery comparing JPL's past and present, commemorating the 80th anniversary of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Oct. 31, 2016. When spacecraft in deep space "phone home," they do it through NASA's Deep Space Network. Engineers in this room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory -- known as Mission Control -- monitor the flow of data. This image was taken in May 1964, when the building this nerve center is in, the Space Flight Operations Facility (Building 230), was dedicated at JPL. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA21120

This archival image was released as part of a gallery comparing JPL's past and present, commemorating the 80th anniversary of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Oct. 31, 2016. Building 11, one of the oldest buildings on lab, was once JPL's central administration building. It is now the Space Sciences Laboratory. This picture dates back to May 1943. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA21201

This archival image was released as part of a gallery comparing JPL's past and present, commemorating the 80th anniversary of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Oct. 31, 2016. This photograph from 1949 shows the main entrance gate to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, after a snowstorm. To the left is JPL's administration building at the time (Building 67). Building 67 is the Materials Research Building today. The Space Flight Operations Facility (Building 230), which houses JPL's Mission Control, now stands over the parking area on the right. As the lab expanded, the main entrance gate moved farther south. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA21118

This archival image was released as part of a gallery comparing JPL's past and present, commemorating the 80th anniversary of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Oct. 31, 2016. This image shows engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory looking at data related to the Venus flyby of Mariner 2 on Dec. 14, 1962. This was the first successful flyby of another planet. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA21117

This archival image was released as part of a gallery comparing JPL's past and present, commemorating the 80th anniversary of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Oct. 31, 2016. At the northeast end of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, there was a row of rocket test pits and storage buildings that housed explosives. This was near the Arroyo Seco, a dry canyon wash at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains. The picture was taken in August 1944. Today, this area is a small parking lot behind the Fabrication Shop (Building 103). http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA21119

This archival image was released as part of a gallery comparing JPL's past and present, commemorating the 80th anniversary of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Oct. 31, 2016. The Administration Building of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Building 180) is pictured in January 1965. What appears as a parking lot in this photograph later becomes "The Mall", a landscaped open-air gathering place. A small security control post can be seen at the left of the 1965 image. And Building 167, one of the lab's cafeterias, is on the right. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA21121

This archival image was released as part of a gallery comparing JPL’s past and present, commemorating the 80th anniversary of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Oct. 31, 2016. Building 264, also known as the Space Flight Support Building, hosts engineers supporting space missions in flight at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It used to be just two stories, as seen in this image from January 1972, but then the Viking project to Mars needed more room. The building still serves the same function today, but now has eight floors. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA21123

This archival image was released as part of a gallery comparing JPL's past and present, commemorating the 80th anniversary of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Oct. 31, 2016. This photograph from 1971 shows the open-air gathering area at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory known as "The Mall." It looks east towards the Applied Mechanics building (the blocky white building now numbered 157). The person in the foreground is Robert Steinbacher, the project scientist for the Mariner 9 mission to Mars. The concrete bridge crossing the ponds remains, even though the ponds have been removed. Many trees and another building, the Central Engineering Building (301), block the view to Building 157 now. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA21125

This archival image was released as part of a gallery comparing JPL's past and present, commemorating the 80th anniversary of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Oct. 31, 2016. During World War II, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory had a contract with the U.S. Army to develop rocket torpedoes. This picture from August 1944 shows the test facility, known as the "Tow Channel." It was used for storage for many years before being torn out to make space for the Earth and Space Science Laboratory (Building 300) and the Microdevices Laboratory (Building 302). http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA21124

This archival image was released as part of a gallery comparing JPL’s past and present, commemorating the 80th anniversary of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Oct. 31, 2016. This is what greeted visitors to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in December 1957, before NASA was created and the lab became one of its centers. There is no sign at this location today -- there is just a stairway that runs up the side of the main Administration Building (Building 180). The official lab sign has moved farther south, just as the lab itself has expanded farther south out from the base of the San Gabriel Mountains. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA21115

This archival image was released as part of a gallery comparing JPL's past and present, commemorating the 80th anniversary of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Oct. 31, 2016. In December 1972, the science steering group for a mission then-known as Mariner Jupiter Saturn 1977 -- later renamed Voyager -- met for the first time at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. They are gathered on the steps in front of the administration building (180). The mission was so named because it was planning to send Mariner-class spacecraft to Jupiter and Saturn. It was renamed Voyager a few months before the launch of the twin spacecraft in August and September 1977. This photo shows principal investigators and team leaders for the science experiments and several others from the project and NASA who attended the first meeting. In the first row: Radio Science Subsystem Team Leader Von Eshleman, Project Scientist Edward Stone, Project Manager Harris (Bud) Schurmeier, Mission Analysis and Engineering Manager Ralph Miles, Magnetometer Principal Investigator Norman Ness, NASA Planetary Program Office Deputy Director Ichtiaque Rasool, Robert Soberman (who was proposed to be the principal investigator of the Particulate Matter Investigation, which was not confirmed) and an unidentified member of the NASA Office of Space Science. In the second row: Infrared Interferometer Spectrometer Principal Investigator Rudolf Hanel, Planetary Radio Astronomy Principal Investigator James Warwick, Ultraviolet and Spectrometer Principal Investigator A. Lyle Broadfoot. In the third row: Low-Energy Charged Particles Principal Investigator Stamatios (Tom) Krimigis, Cosmic Ray Subsystem Principal Investigator Rochus (Robbie) Vogt, NASA Outer Planets Missions Program Manager Warren Keller, Imaging Science Subsystem Team Leader Bradford Smith and Photopolarimeter Principal Investigator Charles Lillie. In the fourth row: Plasma Investigation Principal Investigator Herbert Bridge, Spacecraft Systems Manager Raymond Heacock, NASA Outer Planets Missions Program Scientist Milton (Mike) Mitz and Science Manager James Long. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA21122

This archival image was released as part of a gallery comparing JPL’s past and present, commemorating the 80th anniversary of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Oct. 31, 2016. This photograph shows the first pass of Echo 1, NASA's first communications satellite, over the Goldstone Tracking Station managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Pasadena, California, in the early morning of Aug. 12, 1960. The movement of the antenna, star trails (shorter streaks), and Echo 1 (the long streak in the middle) are visible in this image. Project Echo bounced radio signals off a 10-story-high, aluminum-coated balloon orbiting the Earth. This form of "passive" satellite communication -- which mission managers dubbed a "satelloon" -- was an idea conceived by an engineer from NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, and was a project managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. JPL's role involved sending and receiving signals through two of its 85-foot-diameter (26-meter-diameter) antennas at the Goldstone Tracking Station in California's Mojave Desert. The Goldstone station later became part of NASA's Deep Space Network. JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Deep Space Network for NASA. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA21114