APL’s Response to COVID-19 Laboratory Operations and Visitor Guidance

APL Campus

The Johns Hopkins University
Applied Physics Laboratory

We solve complex research, engineering, and analytical problems that present critical challenges to our nation. APL—the nation’s largest university affiliated research center—provides U.S. government agencies with deep expertise in specialized fields to support national priorities and technology development programs. We also serve as independent trusted technical agents to the government, providing continuity for highly complex, multigenerational technology development systems.

Our Purpose

Our Purpose

Our purpose is to make critical contributions to critical challenges. At APL, we feel it is our responsibility to try to solve these national challenges with the full measure of our dedication and expertise.

Our Core

Our Values

The Lab’s core values are unquestionable integrity, trusted service to the nation, world-class expertise, and game-changing impact—all in an environment that is collaborative, fulfilling (and even fun!).

Our Future

Our Goal

APL’s purpose and core values guide our future, and it is no less than to create defining innovations that ensure our nation’s preeminence in the 21st century.

Latest News

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May 7, 2021

Marine Robotics Pioneer Bellingham to Lead Hopkins Institute for Assured Autonomy

Jim Bellingham, a pioneer in the worldwide autonomous marine robotics field who has led research expeditions from the Arctic to the Antarctic, has been appointed executive director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Assured Autonomy (IAA) in Baltimore, run jointly by Johns Hopkins APL and the Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering. For more than 30 years, Bellingham has been a global leader in the development of small, high-performance autonomous underwater vehicles, resulting in a class of systems that are now widely used within the military, industry and science communities.

April 27, 2021

Pedro Rodriguez: Natural Intelligence

A search for precision led Pedro Rodriguez into his career as an electrical engineer, but because of his insights into new possibilities, he now helps lead Johns Hopkins APL’s AI and machine learning efforts. Today, he sees the potential power and precision of artificial intelligence and machine learning tools as keys to better protect a changing world.

April 26, 2021

“We Had to Get This Right”: How Johns Hopkins Built the Coronavirus Tracking Global Dashboard: An Oral History

As COVID-19 cases multiplied in early 2020, so too did the number of users turning to the Johns Hopkins University dashboard, which tracked global cases of COVID-19 in real time and quickly became the go-to source for the public, the news media and even the U.S. government. But the system’s early infrastructure buckled under the sheer proliferation of data as cases continued to explode worldwide. This is the story of how the most trusted, accurate source of information available on the pandemic came to be, and how it became the data source relied upon globally for near-real-time tracking of the biggest health crisis this century.

April 16, 2021

New Horizons Reaches a Rare Space Milestone

NASA’s New Horizons is reaching a rare deep-space milepost — 50 astronomical units from the Sun, or 50 times farther from the Sun than Earth is. The Johns Hopkins APL-operated New Horizons is just the fifth spacecraft to reach this great distance, following the legendary Voyagers 1 and 2 and Pioneers 10 and 11.

April 15, 2021

Parker Solar Probe Captures First Complete View of Venus Orbital Dust Ring

The Johns Hopkins APL-operated Parker Solar Probe captured the first complete view of Venus’s dust ring, a band of particles that stretches for the entirety of the planet’s path around the Sun. The new observation opens a window to understanding how dust is captured and redistributed throughout the solar system.

April 14, 2021

Super Sticky: Johns Hopkins APL Creates Strong, Fast, Waterproof Adhesive

An APL team created a rapidly curing underwater adhesive that is effective on a range of surfaces, including aluminum, stainless steel, glass and plastic. The adhesive performed best on untreated aluminum surfaces with a high bonding strength of approximately 400 pounds in 60 seconds.

April 8, 2021

Europa Clipper Builds Hardware, Moves Toward Assembly

NASA’s Europa Clipper mission has passed a significant milestone, completing its Critical Design Review. Being developed by Johns Hopkins APL and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the mission can now start to assemble and test the spacecraft and its payload of sophisticated science instruments.