Hoyt Mountain

The Station Fire was the largest wildfire of the 2009 California wildfire season, as well as the largest wildfire in the history of Los Angeles County, that burned in the Angeles National Forest, igniting on August 26, 2009 near the U.S. Forest Service ranger station on the Angeles Crest Highway. Two firefighters, Captain Tedmund Hall and Firefighter Specialist Arnie Quinones, died on August 30, when their fire truck plunged off a cliff during an attempt to set backfires to slow the blaze. The blaze threatened 12,000 structures in the National Forest and the nearby communities of La Cañada Flintridge, Pasadena, Glendale, Acton, La Crescenta, Juniper Hills, Littlerock and Altadena, as well as the Sunland and Tujunga neighborhoods of the City of Los Angeles. Many of these areas faced mandatory evacuations as the flames drew near, but as of September 6, all evacuation orders were lifted. The Station Fire burned on the slopes of Mount Wilson, threatening numerous television, radio and cellular telephone antennas on the summit, as well as the Mount Wilson Observatory, which includes several historically significant telescopes and multimillion-dollar astronomical facilities operated by UCLA, USC, UC Berkeley and Georgia State University. A 40-mile (64-kilometer) stretch of the Angeles Crest Highway was closed until 2010, due to guardrail and sign damage, although the pavement remained largely intact.

Big Tujunga Dam is a 244-foot-high (74 m) concrete arch dam in Los Angeles County, California, spanning Big Tujunga Canyon northeast of Sunland, in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. Completed in 1931, it provides flood control and groundwater recharge for the San Fernando Valley. Its reservoir is called Big Tujunga Reservoir, and collects runoff from a watershed of 82 square miles (210 km2). Although it is located inside the Angeles National Forest, public access to the lake is forbidden. The water is usually kept at a low level, in order to protect against winter floods. The name of the dam is derived from a Tongva village name.

Josephine Peak is a 5,561-foot-elevation (1,695 meter) mountain summit located in the San Gabriel Mountains, in Los Angeles County, California, United States.

Mill Creek is a mountain stream in the Angeles National Forest of Los Angeles County, California, and a major tributary of Big Tujunga Creek. It flows in a southwesterly direction for about 8 miles (13 km) from near Mill Creek Summit in the San Gabriel Mountains to join Big Tujunga Creek near the village of Hidden Springs. The Mill Creek valley provides a major part of the route of Angeles Forest Highway (County Road N3). Mill Creek Summit, 4,910 feet (1,500 m), is the highest point along the road. The named tributaries of Mill Creek, from upstream to downstream, are Monte Cristo Creek, Middle Fork Mill Creek, and North Fork Mill Creek.

Strawberry Peak (6,164 ft or 1,879 m) is a prominent peak in the San Gabriel Mountains of Los Angeles County, California. It is located about 10 miles (16 km) north of Pasadena, and 28 miles (45 km) from Los Angeles, along the Angeles Crest Highway. Strawberry Peak is the tallest of the front range peaks, being three feet higher than nearby San Gabriel Peak. Both can be widely seen from greater Los Angeles and the San Gabriel Valley, and are popular with hikers. Other prominent nearby peaks include Josephine Peak and Mount Wilson. Strawberry Peak was named by mountaineers over a century ago, who felt the peak resembled an enormous upside-down strawberry.The peak can be ascended on the east side as a 7.2-mile round-trip trail walk using Strawberry Peak Trail, which begins near the Red Box Picnic Area, or from the west as a class 3 scramble from a trailhead near the entrance to the Switzer Picnic Site.The area was closed to the public as a result of the Station Fire. However, the last closure order expired on May 24, 2014. Remaining fire damage in the area is minimal. It is especially common to see Rattlesnakes in the area.

Mount Lukens is a mountain peak of the San Gabriel Mountains, in Los Angeles County, Southern California.

The Twenty-Five-Foot Space Simulator is a chamber for testing spacecraft in space-like conditions, including extreme cold, high radiation, and near-vacuum pressure. Built in 1961, it is located at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. It has been used to prepare many American space probes for their launches, including the Ranger, Surveyor, Mariner, and Voyager spacecraft. The first facility of its type, the chamber served as an example for other countries seeking to establish space programs. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1985 and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center in the City of La Cañada Flintridge, California, United States.Founded in the 1930s by Caltech researchers, JPL is owned by NASA and managed by the nearby California Institute of Technology (Caltech). The laboratory's primary function is the construction and operation of planetary robotic spacecraft, though it also conducts Earth-orbit and astronomy missions. It is also responsible for operating the NASA Deep Space Network. Among the laboratory's major active projects are the Mars 2020 mission, which includes the Perseverance rover and the Ingenuity Mars helicopter; the Mars Science Laboratory mission, including the Curiosity rover; the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter; the Juno spacecraft orbiting Jupiter; the SMAP satellite for earth surface soil moisture monitoring; the NuSTAR X-ray telescope; and the forthcoming Psyche asteroid orbiter. It is also responsible for managing the JPL Small-Body Database, and provides physical data and lists of publications for all known small Solar System bodies. JPL's Space Flight Operations Facility and Twenty-Five-Foot Space Simulator are designated National Historic Landmarks.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory Science Division investigates physical and chemical processes on the Earth, in the Solar System, and throughout the universe. Explorations of space and terrestrial processes lead to understanding of the universe. Methods for accomplishing scientific work pertaining to the nature of the Earth, the Solar System, the galaxy, etc., are addressed in the JPL Science Division. Techniques in both physical and life sciences are utilized.

The Space Flight Operations Facility (SFOF) is a building containing a control room and related computing and communications equipment areas at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. NASA's Deep Space Network is operated from this facility. The SFOF has monitored and controlled all interplanetary and deep space exploration for NASA and other international space agencies since 1963. The facility also acted as a backup communications facility for Apollo missions.It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1985 and is on the National Register of Historic Places.Public tours are available with advance planning.

La Cañada Flintridge, commonly known as "La Cañada" (Spanish for "The Canyon"), is a city in the foothills of the Verdugo Mountains in Los Angeles County, California. Located in the Crescenta Valley, in the western edge of Southern California's San Gabriel Valley, it is the location of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Before the city's incorporation on November 30, 1976, it consisted of two distinct communities, "La Cañada" and "Flintridge".

This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The forerunner of the Deep Space Network was established in January 1958, when JPL, then under contract to the U.S. Army, deployed portable radio tracking stations in Nigeria, Singapore, and California to receive telemetry and plot the orbit of the Army-launched Explorer 1, the first successful U.S. satellite.NASA (and the DSN by extension) was officially established on October 1, 1958, to consolidate the separately developing space-exploration programs of the US Army, US Navy, and US Air Force into one civilian organization.