Editing Jet Propulsion Laboratory (section)

=== Transition to NASA ===
In 1954, JPL teamed up with [[Wernher von Braun]]'s engineers at the [[Army Ballistic Missile Agency]]'s [[Redstone Arsenal]] in [[Huntsville, Alabama]], to propose orbiting a satellite during the [[International Geophysical Year]]. The team lost that proposal to [[Project Vanguard]], and instead embarked on a classified project to demonstrate ablative re-entry technology using a [[Jupiter-C]] rocket. They carried out three successful sub-orbital flights in 1956 and 1957. Using a spare [[Juno I]] (a modified Jupiter-C with a fourth stage), the two organizations then launched the United States' first satellite, [[Explorer 1]], on January 31, 1958.<ref name="Koppes" /><ref name="Conway" /> This significant achievement marked a new era for JPL and the US in the space race.

Less than a year later in December 1958, JPL was transferred to the newly formed [[NASA|National Aeronautics and Space Administration]] (NASA).<ref name="bello1959">{{cite news |url=http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2012/06/03/the-early-space-age-fortune-1959/?section=magazines_fortune |title=The Early Space Age |work=Fortune |date=1959 |access-date=June 5, 2012 |author=Bello, Francis |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131103053024/http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2012/06/03/the-early-space-age-fortune-1959/?section=magazines_fortune |archive-date=November 3, 2013 |url-status=dead}}</ref> As a result of this transition, JPL became the agency's primary planetary spacecraft center, leading the design and operation of various lunar and interplanetary missions. The transfer to NASA marked the beginning of a "Golden Age" of planetary exploration for JPL in the 1960s and 1970s.<ref>{{Citation |last=Shipman |first=Harry L. |title=The Golden Age of Planetary Exploration |date=1987 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-6054-2_8 |work=Space 2000 |pages=163–193 |access-date=2023-08-05 |place=Boston, MA |publisher=Springer US |doi=10.1007/978-1-4899-6054-2_8 |isbn=978-0-306-42534-9 |archive-date=May 23, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240523064732/https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4899-6054-2_8 |url-status=live }}</ref> JPL engineers designed and operated [[Ranger program|Ranger]] and [[Surveyor program|Surveyor]] missions to the [[Moon]] that paved the way for the [[Apollo program]]. JPL proved itself a leader in [[interplanetary travel|interplanetary exploration]] with the [[Mariner program|Mariner]] missions to [[Venus]], [[Mars]], and [[Mercury (planet)|Mercury]], returning valuable data about our neighboring planets.<ref name="Koppes" />

Additionally, JPL was early to employ female mathematicians. In the 1940s and 1950s, using mechanical calculators, women in an all-female computations group performed trajectory calculations.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20200525094753/https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=1327 Women Made Early Inroads at JPL – NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory]. Jpl.nasa.gov. Retrieved on 2013-07-21.</ref><ref>[http://www.redstone.army.mil/history/women_chron/1.html] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101107193900/http://www.redstone.army.mil/history/women_chron/1.html|date=November 7, 2010}}</ref> In 1961, JPL hired [[Dana Ulery]] as the first female engineer to work alongside male engineers as part of the [[Ranger program|Ranger]] and [[Mariner program|Mariner]] mission tracking teams.<ref>{{cite web |title=Bibliography |url=http://pub-lib.jpl.nasa.gov/docushare/dsweb/Get/Document-697/Bibliography39-03_1961-1962.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170131012405/https://pub-lib.jpl.nasa.gov/docushare/dsweb/Get/Document-697/Bibliography39-03_1961-1962.pdf |archive-date=2017-01-31 |access-date=2011-01-10 |website=pub-lib.jpl.nasa.gov}}</ref>