LASP’s unique dust instrument sets sail to Europa aboard NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft

LASP’s unique dust instrument sets sail to Europa aboard NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft

Oct. 14, 2024

Dozens of LASP employees, family members, and friends attended the launch of NASA’s flagship Europa Clipper mission, which includes the Europa SUrface Dust Analyzer (SUDA), a unique instrument built at the lab on CU Boulder’s East Campus.

LASP-led NASA MAVEN mission commemorates 10 years in Mars’ orbit

LASP-led NASA MAVEN mission commemorates 10 years in Mars’ orbit

Sept. 23, 2024

Ten years after arriving at Mars, MAVEN has completed more than 22,000 orbits, revealing amazing discoveries on its mission to determine how the Red Planet's climate evolved from warm and wet to the cold, dry planet that we see today.

With Polaris Dawn’s launch, Colorado scientists will study vision changes in space

With Polaris Dawn’s launch, Colorado scientists will study vision changes in space

Sept. 10, 2024

Specialized optical equipment will gather data from astronauts’ eyes and analyze the results during and after the five-day Polaris Dawn mission. The research is a collaboration between Allie Hayman (Aerospace Engineering) and Prem Subramania (CU School of Medicine).

LASP’s Nicholas Kruczek awarded NASA technology fellowship

LASP’s Nicholas Kruczek awarded NASA technology fellowship

Aug. 15, 2024

Nick Kruczek, an instrument engineer in the solar and stellar science division at the Laboratory for Atmospheric Space Physics, has been named a NASA Nancy Grace Roman Technology Fellow. The award recognizes early career researchers with innovative ideas to advance astrophysics flight programs and technology.

Goddard Space Center Director Makenzie Lystrup, LASP Director Dan Baker and Congressman Joe Neguse

New agreement with NASA to advance national space weather capabilities

Aug. 5, 2024

Bolstering its longstanding collaboration with NASA, the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at CU Boulder today enacted a collaborative Space Act Agreement with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. The agreement will advance research and modeling in the critical field of space weather.

LASP team awarded NASA technology grant to develop dust analyzer

LASP team awarded NASA technology grant to develop dust analyzer

July 22, 2024

To learn more about how dust particles may affect future missions, NASA has awarded $1M to a team from CU Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) to develop a dust analyzer capable of measuring the speed, size and charge of tiny dust particles on rocky bodies less than 5 kilometers across.

Aerial view of rocky landscape on Mars

New approach to aerial ground penetrating radar for Mars research

July 1, 2024

Assistant Professor Sean Peters (Aerospace Engineering) is leading a major multi-institutional initiative to create a drone-based, power-efficient passive radar system to map subsurface areas of Mars. The initiative was recently funded by a $2.45 million, three-year NASA grant.

LASP team attends launch of instrument to monitor space weather

LASP team attends launch of instrument to monitor space weather

June 25, 2024

The Kennedy Space Center launch of NOAA’s GOES-U satellite—carrying the fourth and final Extreme Ultraviolet and X-Ray Irradiance Sensors (EXIS) instrument—was a high point in the two-decade long program on which dozens of LASP employees worked for the majority of their careers.

CU Boulder's Ralphie logo on an EXIS instrument created by LASP

Space instruments provide early warnings for solar flares

June 21, 2024

When a solar flare leaps out from around the sun, a small fleet of scientific instruments designed and built at CU Boulder form a first line of defense—spotting these massive eruptions before any other instrument in space, then relaying the information to Earth in seconds.

Testing AI-enabled drones for search and rescue

Testing AI-enabled drones for search and rescue

June 14, 2024

CU Boulder's Ann and H.J. Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences is partnering with the Boulder Emergency Squad to evaluate the use of AI-enabled drones in search and rescue operations, which can independently help teams scout locations or find individuals.

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