The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (or JPL) was a California based institute associated with the California Institute of Technology and NASA.
Following Rain Robinson's SETI contact with the USS Voyager in 1996, she e-mailed a friend at JPL, who in turn, called his professor at Cal Tech, regarding the possibility of extraterrestrial contact. (VOY: "Future's End")
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory received "grateful acknowledgment" in the closing credits of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.