LASP - Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics

The Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado Boulder is one of the world's leading space science research institutes, founded in 1948 — making it one of the oldest university-affiliated space research laboratories in the United States — with a 75-year heritage of designing, building, testing, and operating space science instruments and satellites across every planet in the solar system and spanning every domain of space physics.

LASP has contributed instruments to more than 100 space missions, from early Explorer satellites to planetary orbiters. Notable instrument contributions include the Solar Irradiance Monitor (SIM) and Total Irradiance Monitor (TIM) on NASA's SORCE satellite, which measure total solar irradiance and spectral solar irradiance with unprecedented accuracy — data critical for climate science and understanding Earth's radiative energy balance.

LASP instruments flew on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) mission (for which LASP served as Principal Investigator institution with Bruce Jakosky leading the mission), New Horizons Pluto flyby, and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) CRaTER instrument.

Beyond instrumentation, LASP operates several complete satellite missions: the SORCE solar monitoring satellite (2003-2020), the MinXSS CubeSat solar X-ray science mission, and the CTIPE (Coupled Thermosphere Ionosphere Plasmasphere Electrodynamics) ionosphere model. LASP's Mission Operations and Data Systems (MODS) group runs 24/7 satellite operations from Boulder for active missions.

Research domains at LASP span heliophysics (solar wind, magnetospheric physics, space weather), planetary science (Mars and outer planet atmospheres, Pluto geology), Earth climate science (ozone chemistry, solar influence on climate), and space technology development. The institute employs approximately 750 scientists, engineers, and students — with a unique culture of involving undergraduate and graduate students directly in flight hardware development, making LASP a major pipeline for trained space scientists and engineers. The institute has trained over 2,000 alumni who now work across NASA, national laboratories, and the commercial space industry.