Off-campus facilities

Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is the lead U.S. center for robotic exploration of the solar system.  In addition to its work for NASA, JPL conducts tasks for a variety of other federal agencies.

JPL's main 72-hectare (177-acre) site is at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains near Pasadena, California. In addition, JPL manages the worldwide Deep Space Network (DSN), which communicates with spacecraft and conducts scientific investigations from its complexes in California's Mojave Desert near Goldstone; near Madrid, Spain; and near Canberra, Australia.

USGS, Pasadena Office

The U.S.Geological Survey (USGS) Pasadena Field Office is located across the street from the Seismological Laboratory at 525 South Wilson Avenue and 535 South Wilson Avenue. The Seismo Lab and the USGS together operate the Southern California Seismic Network (SCSN), a seismic network of more than 250 seismometers throughout southern California for recording earthquakes. The SCSN is part of the TriNET Seismic Network, a cooperative project between the USGS, Caltech and the California Division of Mines & Geology (CDMG). The SCSN earthquake data is relayed back to a central computer in the Seismo Lab where it is processed and analyzed by USGS and Caltech staff. It is then archived by the Southern California Earthquake Data Center (SCEDC) at Caltech.

Planetary Science

Students and researchers in the planetary science option at Caltech have access to many off-campus telescopes, computers, and laboratories.