 and then cashes out, you know, becomes this, as it were, accidental millionaire when Aerojet is bought over and is then independently wealthy for the rest of his life. JPL was an Army lab for several years until it transferred to newly formed NASA in 1958. Over the next nearly 70 years, JPL has been one of the main laboratories that designs, creates, and builds planetary robotic spacecraft for the United States, a role it still plays today.