JPL has been around for over 80 years now -- I'm not sure that assuming basic familiarity with it, among people who would care about the Curiosity rover, is even a controversial choice, let alone 'substandard' writing.

I think especially for an organization like JPL, where the name is far from a full description of what they're currently about anyway, people tend to just think of them as 'JPL' rather than how we think of, say, the United Nations.

Edit: Also, all a reader even needs to know is what the sentence already directly implies -- that "JPL" are the ones in charge of operating Curiosity. It's like saying "How AMR Corp keeps American Airlines flying during challenging times for aviation"

The first line of the article starts out "Thirteen years ago last August, I was camped out in NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory press room..."

Anyone not familiar with "JPL" will not be helped by spelling out "Jet Propulsion Laboratory", since it's a misnomer anyways.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration if people are still confused, I guess