The University of Colorado at Boulder took an unusual step today by returning $3 million in cost savings to NASA for an award-winning satellite mission designed, built and controlled by the university to study how the sun’s variation influences Earth’s climate and atmosphere.

Known as the Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment, or SORCE, the $100 million mission centered at CU-Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics was launched by NASA in 2003 and is controlled from the LASP Space Technology Building at the CU Research Park. A $3 million check for the cost savings from SORCE development and operations was presented by LASP officials to Stephen Volz, associate director for flight programs in NASA’s Earth Sciences Division, at a LASP event June 17.