Hundreds of college students reported to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory this month for a 10-week research fellowship that pays $9,600, requires a formal technical paper, and ends with a symposium presentation. They showed up to a lab that has lost roughly a third of its workforce since 2023.

Caltech's Student-Faculty Programs office posted the 2026 cohort's class photo on Instagram on Tuesday, June 16, calling it the program's 48th summer and the first group photo since 2019. The program went virtual during the pandemic. Students in the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships track at JPL (known as SURF@JPL) work 40 hours a week alongside a JPL mentor. They have to be U.S. citizens or permanent residents working toward a STEM degree.

The program has trained more than 7,000 alumni. Their enrichment calendar includes weekly seminars with Caltech faculty and JPL researchers, writing workshops, field trips, and small-group dinners with faculty. Campus housing runs through Saturday, August 22, at $1,450 per month.

Glenn Orton, a JPL planetary scientist who has mentored more than 200 interns since 1985, was profiled by JPL's Education Office in 2020. At the time, he kept all their names pinned to his office wall on 10 single-spaced sheets, in case any called for a reference.

"Often, you get to be the first person in the world who will know about something," Orton said of the research experience.

But the lab these students showed up to looks very different than it did a few years ago. JPL's staffing dropped from roughly 6,500 employees in 2023 to approximately 4,500 by late 2025 through four rounds of layoffs and attrition, according to the Los Angeles Times. The cuts included 550 employees in October 2025 alone.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced on Thursday, May 22, that JPL's management contract would be opened to competitive bidding for the first time. Caltech researchers founded the lab in 1936 and have managed it for NASA since 1958. The current contract, valued at up to $30 billion, runs through September 30, 2028.

Potential bidders have already signaled interest. NASA scheduled an informational event for July where registered attendees include USC, Texas A&M, Georgia Tech, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and the nonprofit MITRE Corporation, the Times reported.

Caltech President Thomas F. Rosenbaum and JPL Director Dave Gallagher said in a joint statement that the competition was "no surprise" and that a team was already in place to compete for the contract. Isaacman said the process would take several years and would not affect projects underway or the lab's Pasadena-area location.