Suborbital​ Missions

Suborbital​ Missions

Soaring sounding rocket and balloon programs

LASP was founded to launch solar instruments aboard suborbital rockets left over from World War II. This legacy continues today, with a “soaring” suborbital science program that includes both rockets and high-altitude balloons.

Our rocket program is supported by the NASA Sounding Rocket Operations Contract to calibrate the Extreme Ultraviolet Variability Experiment (EVE) on board the NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and to fly a variety of astrophysics payloads developed by LASP/CU Boulder faculty, researchers, and students.

LASP’s balloon program includes the France-USA collaborative Stratéole 2 project, which seeks to study the tropical tropopause layer, the gateway to stratosphere, with a series of drifting high-altitude balloons.