Featured Projects
COSI
COSI is a wide field of view gamma-ray telescope that obtains high spectral resolution from 0.2 to 5 MeV, enabling sensitive narrow line imaging of the entire Galaxy.
ESCAPADE
NASA ESCAPADE is the first UC Berkeley-led planetary mission. Its two identical satellites, Blue and Gold, will provide an unprecedented stereo view of Mars magnetosphere.…
Psyche
Psyche is both the name of an asteroid orbiting the Sun between Mars and Jupiter — and the name of a NASA space mission to…
Carruthers Geocorona Observatory
NASA’s Carruthers Geocorona Observatory will image Earth’s exosphere. The exosphere is the outermost layer of the atmosphere, and the geocorona is the light that emanates…
All Projects
ISEE-3/ICE
NASA’s International Sun-Earth Explorer-3 (ISEE-3) conducted the first deep survey of Earth’s magnetic tail. Then, after a series of complex flybys of the Moon, the spacecraft was renamed the International Cometary Explorer (ICE) and became…
ISI
The Infrared Spatial Interferometer (ISI) is a three-telescope interferometric array that uses heterodyne detection at 11 microns wavelength (27 THz). Measurements of the sizes, shapes and changes of red giant stars and their dust envelopes.…
ISUAL
The Imager for Sprites and Upper Atmospheric Lightning (ISUAL) was a cooperation between the Space Sciences Laboratory (SSL) of the University of California at Berkeley with the National Chen Kung University (NCKU). This cooperation was…
KPF
The Keck Planet Finder (KPF) is a next-generation optical spectrometer in design for the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. KPF will discover and characterize extrasolar planets using the radial velocity (RV) or Doppler spectroscopy technique, with…
LuSEE-Night
The Lunar Surface Electromagnetics Experiment-Night (LuSEE-Night) is a pathfinder which will study the Moon’s radio environment and potentially take a first look at a previously unobserved era in our cosmic history. It is a collaboration between NASA…
MANGO
The Midlatitude Allsky-imaging Network for GeoSpace Observations (MANGO) is a collection of cameras spread across the continental United States with the goal of imaging large-scale airglow and aurora features. MANGO will be used to observe…
Mars Global Surveyor
Mars Global Surveyor was an orbiting spacecraft that looped around the Red Planet for a decade. The mission overhauled scientists’ understanding of Mars by studying the entire Martian surface, atmosphere, and interior. Major findings included…
MAVEN
The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) mission was the first mission devoted to understanding the Martian upper atmosphere. The mission’s goal was to explore the planet’s upper atmosphere, ionosphere, and interactions with the Sun…
MAXIS
The scientific purpose for the MeV Auroral X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy (MAXIS) flight is to study electron precipitation from the magnetosphere into the ionosphere. This electron precipitation creates the aurora (northern and southern lights) along…
MESSENGER
NASA’s MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER)spacecraft orbited Mercury for more than four years. Among its accomplishments, the mission determined Mercury’s surface composition, revealed its geological history, discovered details about its internal magnetic…