Keith’s note: the impact of the fires in California with regard to the JPL community is now becoming abundantly clear.

• Eaton Fire Leaves California Landscape Charred, NASA: “On the afternoon of January 11, 2025, NASA’s AVIRIS-3 (Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer-3) flew aboard a B200 aircraft over Los Angeles County, where it captured images of several areas affected by wildland fires.”
• Southern California Wildfires Impact Caltech Community, Caltech: “More than 250 individuals and families across campus and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) have lost their homes to the fires, while more than 1,800 remain temporarily displaced due to evacuation orders; lack of working power, gas, and/or safe water; and other circumstances. … The Caltech and JPL Disaster Relief Fund, which was launched Friday, January 10, has already received more than $2 million in commitments from more than 2,000 donors.”
• Over 200 NASA JPL, Caltech employees lose homes from Los Angeles wildfires, Fox Weather: “Los Angeles wildfires are devastating all industries in Southern California, including NASA and Caltech faculty and staff – the hard-working minds behind key space exploration research and technology.”

Team SMD: JPL update. The Eaton Fire remains 0% contained although fire activity in the vicinity of JPL has reduced somewhat. No reports of physical harm to any employees or family members. However it appears that about 150 JPL staff have lost their homes, and this number will likely continue to increase as fires continue and more insight into damage becomes known. Over 1000 JPLers remain under mandatory evacuation orders.

Keith’s note: JPL and CalTech have been able to set up a disaster relief fund for those affected by the devastating fires in southern California. Go to Caltech JPL Relief Fund

Laurie Leshin – @LaurieofMars – “JPL is closed except for emergency personnel. No fire damage so far (some wind damage) but it is very close to the lab. Hundreds of JPLers have been evacuated from their homes & many have lost homes. Special thx to our emergency crews. Pls keep us in your thoughts & stay safe.”

JPL statement issued on Nov. 12, 2024: “While we have taken various measures to meet our current FY’25 budget allocation, we have reached the difficult decision to reduce the JPL workforce through layoffs. This reduction affects approximately 325 of our colleagues, an impact of about 5% of our workforce. The impacts are occurring across technical, business, and support areas of the Laboratory. These are painful but necessary adjustments that will enable us to adhere to our budget while continuing our important work for NASA and our nation. The following is a memo sent earlier today from JPL Director Laurie Leshin to employees:”

Keith’s note: Sources report that former JPL director and planetary science leged Ed Stone has died. Details to follow. Ad Astra Ed. Update from JPL: Ed Stone, Former Director of JPL and Voyager Project Scientist, Dies

Keith’s note: Mars Sample Return, however well-intentioned and lauded by advisory committees, has been tossed around and modified and rescheduled so many times that it is no longer clear what it should do – or if it is even needed. It has always been somewhat gospel that NASA would not send human crews to Mars until a sample return mission had allowed the question of current life to be addressed. The current scenario has a Mars sample return to Earth in 2033 and (one would guess) basic findings a year later. A decade ago NASA talked about sending humans to Mars in the mid 2030s. Now it is the 2040s. Given the increasingly slow pace and out of control costs with which NASA develops human spaceflight capabilities, in order to meet a mid 2040s goal, basic mission design and hardware development needs to happen shortly after the sample comes back to Earth. Add in recent JPL layoffs, private plans by SpaceX et al to simply go there regardless of a sample return mission, and China’s plans to do sample return sooner than the U.S., and the entire NASA Mars Sample Return paradigm has become hopelessly clouded and conflicted. Given incredible advances in nanotechnology and genomics perhaps it is time to consider in situ life detection missions that actually look for life instead of sniffing around the edges. Here is what NASA OIG said the other day:

• The trajectory of the MSR Program’s life-cycle cost estimate, which has grown from $2.5 to $3 billion in July 2020, to $6.2 billion at KDP-B in September 2022, to an unofficial estimate of $7.4 billion as of June 2023 raises questions about the affordability of the Program. Characteristics intrinsic to big and complex missions like the MSR Program are hard to quantify in estimates but can drive project costs upwards throughout development. These include fully understanding the mission’s complexity, initial over-optimism, a less than optimal design/architecture, and the team’s ability to perform to expectations. When developing its cost and schedule estimate for KDP-C, and as the MSR Program addresses its architecture issues, Program management must consider these intrinsic characteristics and not attribute past cost growth to just the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation, or supply chain issues.
• Additionally, MSR Program formulation is impacted by coordination challenges between NASA and ESA. While communication processes are formally documented and being followed, NASA and ESA are experiencing issues related to schedule transparency, asynchronous design progress, and mass allocation, which appear to stem from differing operational approaches, acquisition strategies, and agency funding mechanisms. The CCRS project team noted that significant progress has been made addressing interface issues between the two entities.
• The MSR Program recently acknowledged it likely cannot meet the life-cycle cost estimate and launch dates established at KDP-B. A September 2023 report by an Independent Review Board recommended the Program consider modifications to specific mission designs. Accordingly, it is critical that before the MSR Program is approved to proceed from formulation into development, viable alternatives to the Program’s mission architecture are considered—including mission launch and sample return alternatives—as well as the value of the samples returned, the Program’s schedule, life-cycle cost estimate, and the Agency’s historic leadership position in space exploration.

Keith’s note: I am turning off commenting on this post. I cannot believe the comments I am seeing – people saying “so what”, “No big deal” – and some outright happy that 500+ JPLers are being laid off for [particular odd politics] reasons. You people have screws loose. Jeff Nosanov: The other day the Jet Propulsion Laboratory – the facility in Pasadena that built and operates the Mars Rovers – just laid off approximately 8% of its workforce, about 530 people. Occasionally in human history a superpower will choose to abandon a position of leadership, or yield dominance of a frontier, in favor of, or because of, internal or domestic conflict.

Keith’s note: It has been 2 days – still no comment from American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Aerospace Industries Association, Commercial Spaceflight Federation, National Space Society, Coalition for Deep Space Exploration, Space Foundation etc. – the big supporters of human and commercial space – about the welfare of NASA JPL and other NASA employees that have been laid off? WTF? Human/commercial space people can’t be bothered to support NASA workforce? The people who build exploration missions are not worth sticking up for? FYI Artemis and ISS and LEO funding aren’t immune by any means either. United we stand, Divided we fall. Update: NSS responded – see tweet below. If you ever needed evidence that they are clueless/irrelevant, this is it.

Keith’s note: You’ll never hear about this from NASA – but WBUR’s “OnPoint” program just covered the amazing saga of the Mars Ingenuity helicopter [Listen here]. I’ve listened to lots of space coverage – for a very long time – as a young boy and not so young adult. I have to say, “on Point” host Meghna Chakrabarti did a truly masterful interview with the Ingenuity team. Not only did she do her homework in advance, but she took the time to tease out the special little things from the team that made this little project a big success. More below.