June 2017

GOLD represents the first time universities and a commercial spacecraft operator will team up to enable a NASA science mission. Such a collaborative approach may blaze a trail for similar projects at universities nationwide.

“We have a solid relationship with SpaceX and NASA that allows us to regularly fly our flight hardware to the International Space Station,” said BioServe Director Louis Stodieck. “The low gravity of space provides a unique environment for biomedical experiments that cannot be reproduced on Earth, and our faculty, staff and students are very experienced in designing and building custom payloads for our academic, commercial and government partners.”

A consortium of universities led by the CU Boulder Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences has received a five year, $7.5 million Department of Defense grant to investigate the extreme altitudes—80,000 to 120,000 feet—where hypersonic planes would fly.

CU Boulder and JILA physicists take laser-cooled atoms airborne as part of an effort to improve aerospace sensing and navigation.