Parade Float Honors NASA/JPL's Family of Explorers

The tallest float in the Rose Parade this year was "Family of Explorers," a 50-foot-tall robot sponsored by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and California Institute of Technology (Caltech). The Rose Parade is a New Year's Day tradition in Pasadena, California, home of JPL and Caltech. Maybe you saw it on TV. The robot float saluted the space missions managed by JPL and Caltech and the family of scientists, professors, and researchers that made the missions possible. All these spacecraft are currently exploring somewhere in the solar system, either in Earth orbit or beyond.