Journeys of discovery
LASP has a long history of involvement in space missions, beginning in the 1960s and still going strong today. Most of the missions in which we participate are larger than CubeSats and operate from free-flying spacecraft. They include investigations of astrophysics, heliophysics, and the Earth and planetary sciences—research that represents every NASA science mission directorate—and operate across mindboggling distances. These range from satellites like AIM flying in Low Earth Orbit to study Earth’s highest clouds, to MAVEN, a LASP-led Mars orbiter deciphering the Red Planet’s climate history, to the intrepid Voyager spacecraft, which is currently searching for the edge of our solar system.