Since its inception in 1959, SSL has participated in over 50 NASA space science missions, including the Apollo, Mars, and Explorer programs, as well as many international space missions. SSL researchers have pioneered the development of instrumentation for study of the Sun, the interplanetary medium, the planets, and the Earth; for optical, ultraviolet, x-ray, gamma-ray, radio, and infrared astronomy; and for the measurement of the cosmic microwave background.

SSL provides the unique engineering and technical capabilities required to develop and fabricate individual space instruments or an entire scientific payload for a spacecraft, or even to handle an entire space mission from start-to-finish – complete with in-house instrument design and fabrication, instrument and spacecraft integration and test, launch support, mission and science operations including commanding the spacecraft and bringing the data down to SSL’s own ground station, and data processing and analysis.