The papers of Frank J. Malina (1912-1981) span the years 1912-1986 and are organized into two parts.

Part I

Part I of the Frank J. Malina Papers was arranged, described, and microfiched by the California Institute of Technology prior to transferring the collection to the Library of Congress. The institute published a finding aid, The Frank J. Malina Collection at the California Institute of Technology: Guide to a Microfiche Edition (Pasadena, Cal. Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, California Institute of Technology, 1986), which also serves as a guide to Part I of the papers in the Library of Congress and is available at http://authors.library.caltech.edu/25015/1/MalinaCollection.pdf.

Part I consists of correspondence, reports, research and subject files, writings, biographical material, and other papers documenting Malina's career as an aerospace engineer at the California Institute of Technology where he was cofounder of the Daniel Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory rocket research project and later director of the U.S. Jet Propulsion Laboratory there. Included is material on the history of aeronautics, international aeronautical societies and meetings, the periodical Acta Astronautica (of which Malina was editor), Aerojet-General Corporation, and his tenure as director of Unesco's Division of Scientific Research and Higher Education in Paris. His subsequent career in kinetic art in Paris and as founder of the periodical Leonardo is also documented. Correspondents include Andrew G. Haley and Theodore Von Kármán.

Part I spans the years 1912-1982 and is organized into seventeen sections: Personal Correspondence, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Professional Organizations and Meetings, Aerojet Corporation, Theodore von Kármán, Manuscripts, Publication Correspondence, Technical Files Regarding History of Aeronautics, Biographical and Personal, Leonardo, Activities in Art, International Academy of Astronautics, Lunar International Laboratory Committee, Acta Astronautica, International Astronautical Activities, and Personal Correspondence.

Part II

Part II of the Malina Papers, spanning the years 1927-1986, was arranged by the Library of Congress. Principally a continuation of the Personal Correspondence and Biographical and Personal sections, or series, in Part I, these papers consist mostly of letters to Malina from friends and family. Correspondents include his mother, Carolyn Malina; his sister, Carolyn Malina Mercer; his friend, Jerry William Marek; and family members and friends in Czechoslovakia. Letters from Czechoslovakia are written in Czech and French. Although much of the correspondence concerns the activities of the extended Malina family, friends, and neighbors in Brenham, Texas, there is also much commentary on Frank Malina's personal, scholarly, and professional activities from the time he entered college until his death five decades later. Three memoirs by Malina record his experiences in rocketry research in California, circa 1936-1946, as published in astronautical proceedings. Part II has not been microfiched and does not appear on the microfiche retained by the California Institute of Technology.