Missions

The Univeristy of Colorado's student and faculty efforts to study and explore space began in 1948 with a sub-orbital rocket program studying Earth's upper atmosphere, predating even NASA. Today, CU and its Boulder and Colorado partners are forging the path toward a future with increased use of space for commercial and scientific purposes. As the largest academic recipient of NASA grants, our scientists and engineers play a key role in designing, building, and studying tomorrow's space missions. LASP is one of the very few institutions in the world that can handle all key aspects of running a space mission: from the initial concept design, to fabrication of instruments and the spacecraft bus, to mission operations and archiving the science data. In an age of reduced budgets, NASA knows it can count on the University of Colorado to get our projects done on time and on budget. 

Our sounding rocket and CubeSat programs give students hands-on experience with emerging technologies, giving them control over science objectives and day-to-day operations. The students in these program are highly recruited by industry and frequently go on to run much large NASA programs.

Below are just a few of the many projects CU scientists and engineers are designing or operating.