LASP has a long history of involvement in space missions, beginning in the 1960s and remaining strong today. On any individual mission, LASP may have one or more roles: science direction and research, engineering of an individual instrument or component, engineering of an entire instrument suite, mission operations of individual instruments, or mission operations for the spacecraft as a whole.
CU undergraduate and graduate students are typically involved as part of any mission work that LASP undertakes. Sometimes, student teams lead instrument development under the supervision of professionals; examples include the Student Nitric Oxide Explorer, the Solar Mesosphere Explorer, and the Student Dust Counter.
Mission timeline
Alphabetical list of LASP missions
- Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM)
- Atmosphere Explorer C (AE-C)
- Atmosphere Explorer D (AE-D)
- Cassini UltraViolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS)
- Collisions Into Dust Experiment 2 (COLLIDE-2)
- Colorado Student Space Weather Experiment (CSSWE)
- Galileo Ultraviolet Spectrometer/Extreme Ultraviolet Spectrometer Experiment (UVS/EUV)
- Geostationary Operations Environment Satellite R-Series Program (GOES-R)
- Glory
- Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat)
- Kepler
- Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE)
- Magnetospheric MultiScale (MMS)
- Mariner 5
- Mariner 6 & 7
- Mariner 9
- Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission (MAVEN)
- Mars 96
- Mars Global Surveyor (MGS)
- Mechanics of Granular Materials (MGM)
- Mercury Atmospheric and Surface Composition Spectrometer (MESSENGER MASCS)
- New Horizons Student Dust Counter (SDC)
- Orbiting Solar Observatory-5 (OSO-5)
- Orbiting Solar Observatory-8 (OSO-8)
- Pioneer Venus
- Polar Toroidal Imaging Mass-Angle Spectrograph (TIMAS)
- Quick Scatterometer (QuikSCAT)
- Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP)
- Solar Dynamics Observatory/EUV Variability Experiment (SDO/EVE)
- Solar Mesosphere Explorer (SME)
- Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE)
- Solar Probe Plus (SPP)
- Space Technology Research Vehicle (STRV)
- Spartan Halley
- Student Nitric Oxide Explorer (SNOE)
- Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions During Substorms (THEMIS)
- Total Solar Irradiance Sensor (TSIS)
- TIMED Solar EUV Experiment (SEE)
- Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite – Solar Stellar Irradiance Comparison Experiment (UARS / SOLSTICE)
- Voyager 1 & 2
