Caltech is set to operate the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for another five years, after NASA renewed a contract that dates back to the creation of the space agency in 1958.

The $8.5 billion contract extends the JPL management agreement to Sept. 30, 2017. The current contract was set to expire next month.

“We are very pleased to be continuing our partnership with NASA,” Caltech president Jean-Lou Chameau said. “Through this sustained collaboration, we ensure that JPL continues to be a national resource for space exploration, scientific leadership, technology and discovery, as well as an inspiration for young scientists and engineers.”

The five-year duration is a return to the partnership that Caltech and NASA have had traditionally.

Beginning in 2008, the previous two JPL contracts were for two years. NASA went out to public bid in 2010 after the agency’s inspector general issued a report questioning whether the previous contract had any incentive to control costs.

The new five-year contract was finalized only two weeks after JPL landed a new rover, Curiosity, on the surface of Mars for a two-year mission.

“The great success to date of Curiosity is really showing the science program at NASA is important,” Chameau said.

He characterized the contract as part of a long-term partnership that would continue well beyond this year’s budget cuts that have forced NASA and JPL to scale down projects.

Caltech played a major part in JPL’s origins, when a group of graduate students formed for rocket research in the 1930s, conducted experiments in Pasadena’s Arroyo Seco.

james.figueroa@sgvn.com

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