$27.5 Million Gift Expands Aerospace Prowess of Caltech and JPL

Caltech and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which Caltech manages for NASA, will expand aerospace research, hands-on training, and innovation on campus and at the Lab through two gifts totaling $27.5 million from philanthropists Foster and Coco Stanback.

A $20 million gift through the Foundation for the Carolinas will create the New Space Makerspace at JPL and support education and workforce development programs led by Caltech. A separate $7.5 million gift will renovate and expand Caltech's hypersonic research facility and add a new shock tube for studying flight at extreme speeds.

"Caltech and JPL have played defining roles in modern aerospace research and innovation since the field's earliest days, and Foster and Coco's remarkable generosity will help build upon that pioneering legacy," says Caltech President Ray Jayawardhana, the Sonja and William Davidow Presidential Chair and professor of astronomy. "These gifts will be powerful catalysts for advancing leading-edge research, accelerating the transformation of bold ideas into breakthrough technologies, and providing the hands-on training needed to cultivate the highly skilled talent for a rapidly evolving aerospace industry. Caltech and JPL are tremendously grateful for Foster and Coco's enduring partnership and for their galvanizing vision in which scientific discovery, technological innovation, and expanding opportunity go hand in hand."

The New Space Makerspace will encourage and facilitate blue-sky thinking, providing access to specialized fabrication equipment that can be used to translate new concepts into working technologies and instruments. Students and technical trainees will also gain valuable experience and develop skillsets in the design, fabrication, and use of the technologies and instrumentation.

"We're training. We're inventing. We're manufacturing," says John Eiler, the Robert P. Sharp Professor of Geology and Geochemistry and Ted and Ginger Jenkins Leadership Chair of the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences. "We don't have to choose between these things. We can actually do these things all together."

The gifts by the Stanbacks—who have been long-standing supporters of the Institute, including committing funds to establish Caltech's Center for Autonomous Systems and Technologies (CAST) in 2015—will support this work at several stages, from experiments on campus to the construction of instruments for space missions. The training will also prepare participants for jobs beyond Caltech and JPL, in the wider aerospace industry.

"The breakthroughs that enable unprecedented exploration and discovery begin with teams that have the space, tools, and freedom to experiment," says Dave Gallagher, JPL director and Caltech vice president. "These generous gifts strengthen our workforce's ability to turn bold ideas from concept to reality while fostering collaboration, hands-on learning, and mentorship."

The new facilities and equipment will enable new generations of innovators, creators, and engineers on the campus and the Lab, says Shouleh Nikzad (PhD '90), JPL's chief technologist, a JPL Fellow, and a Caltech distinguished alumna.

"The creation of a makerspace will allow researchers to create new technologies and systems to enable future discoveries—to invent and innovate by pushing boundaries and the equipment," Nikzad says.

Learning to Build

The makerspace's chip-to-board assembly facilities will give users a chance to rapidly develop field- or flight-testable prototypes. In addition to facilities and equipment, the funds provide for training through a Makerspace Fellows Program. The fellows program and the makerspace equipment will give users a chance to learn how a device made in a research lab becomes part of a working system. Student interns from various schools, including community colleges and other technical education programs, as well as postdocs, will work alongside JPL staff and participants.

"This will help us grow the scientific workforce in this important field," says Harry Atwater, the Howard Hughes Professor of Applied Physics and Materials Science and Otis Booth Leadership Chair of the Division of Engineering and Applied Science.

Among other skills, students, postdocs, and others will learn to use tools to connect a new chip to the electronics needed to operate and test it. This kind of experience can help students pursuing careers in research to create physical models and demonstrations of their inventions, while trainees preparing to enter the industry workforce will acquire practical skills they might otherwise develop only after being hired.

"This is the kind of stuff you previously have had to learn on the job only after you get to industry," Atwater says.

The effort will build on decades-long programs at Caltech and JPL that have collectively provided thousands of student researchers with hands-on learning experience. Since 1979, Caltech's Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships (SURF) program has paired undergraduates from Caltech and other universities with experienced mentors to work on summer research projects on the Caltech campus or at the Lab. The Lab also supports as many as 500 undergraduate students each summer through its NASA internship program—the agency's largest—and other programs.

Working with partner colleges and universities to expand access to equipment and mentors is an important part of the makerspace's purpose, says Nikzad, who is also a senior faculty associate in physics at Caltech.

"We want to create opportunities for students from across institutions to pursue new ideas together and help foster an even richer environment for research and innovation," Nikzad says.

A New Makerspace

The New Space Makerspace will be located near JPL's Microdevices Laboratory (MDL). For nearly 35 years, MDL has created solutions for challenges in space science, observation, and exploration through the development of advanced sensors, high-performance miniaturized compact components, and instruments. Researchers use its shared fabrication facilities to create and test specialized devices, including image sensors, detectors, and instruments for chemical analysis. For example, MDL provided the lasers for the tunable laser spectrometer aboard NASA's Curiosity Mars rover, which has been exploring the Red Planet for the past 14 years. The instrument, which identifies gases by measuring how they absorb infrared light, detected methane in the Martian atmosphere and tracked its variation across seasons. Detectors invented at MDL by Jonas Zmuidzinas (BS '81), the Merle Kingsley Professor of Physics at Caltech, and MDL senior research scientist Rick LeDuc enable the ambitious science goals of NASA's $1 billion PRIMA mission, which plans to explore the dusty universe in far-infrared light. JPL was recently selected by the agency to lead the mission.

The makerspace will connect work at MDL with the activities of Caltech's Kavli Nanoscience Institute (KNI). KNI is a specialized interdisciplinary research facility that that provides researchers shared tools to make and study devices with features measured in billionths of a meter—work that spans disciplines, from electronics and photonics (the study and control of light), to quantum technologies and bioengineering.

Atwater's own work with JPL illustrates how researchers might leverage the new functionalities of the makerspace in combination with existing facilities. His group has developed chips that steer a beam of light by adjusting how light waves combine, with potential uses in lidar, which measures distance using reflected laser light. Caltech students design the chips, but operating them requires supporting circuits and electronic controls. Few academic labs have the staff or budget to build those circuits so they must be sourced from outside suppliers, which can charge hundreds of thousands of dollars for a single project. Researchers must therefore pick which inventions become complete prototypes.

"This path to progress is slow and painful," says Atwater, who is also the director of a Department of Energy (DOE) Energy Innovation Hub called the Liquid Sunlight Alliance (LiSA), which is working to develop efficient methods to make liquid fuels from sunlight.

The makerspace will provide research groups with the tools to assemble and test such systems, and with such complete working prototypes, it will be easier to interest companies in the work, Atwater says.

"I think this is likely to accelerate the engagement of both Caltech and JPL with the commercial space sector," he says.

Another possible use of the makerspace is the design and construction of a better hyperspectral imager for studying the Moon or Mars, Eiler says. Such an instrument measures light across many wavelengths to help scientists identify materials on the surfaces of those worlds. A researcher could begin at KNI by developing a new detector material, work with MDL to build a device suitable for spaceflight, and use the makerspace to connect it to the electronics it needs aboard a spacecraft.

The makerspace will be a first step in a broader effort to expand the capabilities of JPL and MDL, enabling innovation at a component and system level, Nikzad says. She envisions pairing JPL sensors with AI chips made by industry to create instruments that could process measurements and make decisions onboard a spacecraft or on planetary surfaces. The makerspace will provide the tools to connect those components.

Nikzad also sees the makerspace as a place to experiment while the work of delivering flight hardware remains undisturbed. Instruments destined for missions require well-calibrated equipment and established procedures. The makerspace will provide early career researchers the opportunity to try new ideas outside existing missions, giving them room to experiment and learn the techniques needed to turn an invention into a working instrument.

"JPL enables space science and exploration through inventing, innovating, and infusing technology. Research and flight hardware delivery are both important, but flight delivery has added urgency. In the realm of invention and innovation—especially with accelerating innovation—you're creating recipes, so you might burn a few things," Nikzad says. "You have to play, and you have to push the machines."

Expanding Hypersonic Research

The second gift from the Stanbacks, to construct a new hypersonic research facility, will continue Caltech's long legacy of investigation and innovation in aeronautics and aerospace. In 1917, the Institute's trustees approved construction of Southern California's first wind tunnel. A larger tunnel later helped engineers test aircraft designs, including the Douglas DC-1 and DC-2.

Caltech also helped researchers study flight beyond the speed of sound. A small tunnel operated in 1941 and 1942 was the first continually operating supersonic wind tunnel in the United States to reach Mach 4, or four times the speed of sound.

Today, Caltech's hypersonic facilities support experiments on flight at more than five times the speed of sound. At those speeds, shock waves generate intense heating, a problem spacecraft must withstand when entering an atmosphere. Caltech's facilities recreate aspects of those conditions so researchers can study the airflow and the heat it transfers to a vehicle.

The work builds on a research program shaped over decades by Hans Hornung, C. L. "Kelly" Johnson Professor of Aeronautics, Emeritus, and Joseph Shepherd (PhD '81), C. L. Johnson Professor of Aeronautics and Mechanical Engineering, Emeritus; and currently by Joanna Austin, professor of aerospace and leader of Caltech's hypersonic laboratories. Hornung began expanding the roof-level facility at Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory in the late 1980s.

"This gift gives us the facilities to take their work further—and to attract new faculty and students who will shape the next chapter of aerospace research at Caltech," says Sergio Pellegrino, the Joyce and Kent Kresa Professor of Aerospace and Civil Engineering, Leadership Chair of the Lynn Booth and Kent Kresa Department of Aerospace, and a JPL senior research scientist.

The facility's current T5 shock tunnel exposes test models to airflow at about 1,700 degrees Celsius for roughly a thousandth of a second. High-speed cameras and temperature and pressure sensors record that brief exposure, helping researchers understand the heating and forces spacecraft encounter during atmospheric entry.

The gift will expand the footprint of the existing facility, providing the space to install a new hypersonic shock tube capable of producing temperatures and flow velocities that exceed those achieved in the T5 tunnel, broadening the conditions researchers can study, Pellegrino says. Funds to develop the new shock tube are included in the gift. A complete renovation of the current facility will provide better access to the existing equipment as well as safer emergency exits.

Pellegrino wants to preserve a university setting where students can conduct experiments and publish their results. Other laboratories in the field, he says, restrict access or publication.

"Ours is one of the unique places where every student on campus can come and do experiments," he says.

Opening the Door for a New Workforce

Foster Stanback, who hopes the new facilities will be "inspiring for students to work in," views America's aerospace manufacturing expertise as a source of middle-class jobs. He wants more young people to have the chance to gain technical skills and earn a living using them. He says preserving that expertise as other countries develop their own aerospace technologies will require sustained investment in research and engineering education at institutions such as Caltech.

"For aerospace engineering, you need a Caltech there," Foster says. "You've got to have that cutting-edge research. That's what makes all this possible."

With a background in both finance and education, Foster is currently an aviation professor at Cypress College and has been nominated as a 2027 Orange County Teacher of the Year. He has served as an aerospace education officer in the Civil Air Patrol as well.

As part of their ongoing commitment to students, the Stanbacks have supported graduate fellowships; provided operational support to Propulsion, Aeronautics, Rocket Systems Engineering at Caltech (PARSEC), a student rocketry group; and contributed to a new state-of-the-art rocketry facility, the Frank J. Malina Laboratory for High-Speed Flight Dynamics, scheduled to open next year.

On a personal level, Foster has seen what an opportunity to learn can do for a student. Years ago, Foster's brother-in-law, a math teacher at Anaheim High School, asked him to take a promising student flying. The student wanted to become an aerospace engineer and work for NASA, but his family had few financial resources.

Foster took him up in a plane, and subsequently helped him enroll in metallurgy and electronics courses at a community college. The student later earned a scholarship to study aerospace engineering and secured a JPL internship, and ultimately earned a master's degree in aerospace engineering.

"He was already ready and willing and eager, but he's a kid who could have easily just been shut out completely," says Foster, who wants the new programs at Caltech and JPL to reach students who might never think of applying for a JPL internship, and for the hypersonic facility to provide interns who might otherwise never visit Caltech to have the chance to spend a summer working beside its professors and graduate students.

"The metric that's most important to me is people," he says. "If I can walk up to someone who's been through a program and an internship, and benefited from it, and now they're thriving, they've got a great job, and oftentimes are then giving back themselves and helping other young people—that means everything to me."