Space Sciences Laboratory

A brief overview of 50+ years of education, innovation and discovery at the UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory. youtu.be/7Ar1gwRh2a4

The @caltech.edu-led UVEX, which is managed by SSL/@ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social, is now an official NASA mission. “UVEX takes advantage of the unique expertise at Caltech and Berkeley to create a mission that increases our sensitivity to the ultraviolet..." www.ssl.berkeley.edu/berkeleys-ma...

SSL affiliate Jessica Lu and David Weinberg of Ohio State University have created collaboration of scientists — nearly a thousand and growing — to determine the most efficient way to digest over 1TB of daily data from the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope.

UC Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory (@ucbssl.bsky.social) is one of only two university-based centers in the U.S. capable of managing the full life cycle of a satellite mission. Watch how SSL leads NASA missions like ESCAPADE — the first dual-satellite mission to another planet, headed to Mars.

NASA's ESCAPADE mission is headed to Mars next month — and a scientist, engineer and mission operator behind it are ready to answer your questions! 🛰️ Join UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory (@ucbssl.bsky.social) for a Reddit AMA on Wed., Oct. 28 at 11:30am PT at u/UCBerkeley! bit.ly/4B6aBPL

Berkeley professor and SSL director from 1979-1985, Buford Price, collaborated with Francis Halzen on AMANDA (Antarctic Muon And Neutrino Detector Array). It later evolved into the IceCube experiment, which won Halzen the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics.

SSL Associate Director for Planetary Science Robert Lillis gave a talk on NASA's ESCAPADE and lessons for low-cost missions as part of our colloquium series. Watch the full talk here👇 youtu.be/74LOruHd1Uc

Check out these photos of @ucbssl.bsky.social engineers assembling COSI flight instrumentation in July 2026.

COSI's detector assembly is featured in NASA's image of the day 🎉 www.nasa.gov/image-articl...

Thank you @azizasuleymanzade.bsky.social for stopping to tell us about entanglement as a resource for future instrument design. Looking forward to the arrival of space-based quantum systems at SSL!

Today, science orbiters of @esa.int & JAXA's BepiColombo mission separated from their transfer module to continue their voyage to Mercury. SSL and Michigan Engineering researchers have found something new for the mission to investigate: a radiation belt around Mercury. 🔭🛰🌑

Saturn’s famous northern hexagon has perplexed scientists since its discovery in 1980. Now researchers with SSL, NASA and the University of the Basque Country, have spotted a recently-emerged decagon near Saturn's southern pole.🪐🔭 www.ssl.berkeley.edu/decagon-wave...

New photos and video documenting the COSI payload assembly at @ucbssl.bsky.social have posted on NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio. 🔭🧪🛰️👇 svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/15088

The Solar Radio Burst Tracker project, hosted by @zooniverse.bsky.social, needs your help to identify solar radio bursts in Parker Solar Probe spectra. Click on the following link to learn more and volunteer. tinyurl.com/2mah93bp

“There is great beauty in the depth of knowledge humans have collected.” - Lindy Elkins-Tanton Lindy is director of @ucbssl.bsky.social, and the PI of @missiontopsyche.bsky.social, leading our first close examination of a metal rich asteroid. explorers.com/lindy-elkins... @nationalacademies.org

The ESCAPADE team used its Visible and Infrared Observation System cameras to snap these incredible pictures of the Earth and the Moon in visible and thermal infrared light from 363,250 miles away! 🙌 Looking forward to our close-up as Blue and Gold slingshot around the Earth this fall.

Shaosui Xu, associate research physicist at SSL, was lead author on a paper that described how Mars' localized auroras are generated through a similar process as those on Earth, despite Mars having no global magnetic field. “It’s incredible to be part of the team that found the answer...” said Xu.

We were thrilled to host representatives from @isae-supaero.bsky.social and @cnes.fr who recently toured SSL. They observed instrument development for the @cosi-explorer.bsky.social and PADRE missions. After the tour, ISAE-SUPAERO president Marie-Hélène Baroux gave a talk for members of the lab.

Aerospace engineers with @ucbssl.bsky.social have just assembled the detector array for the COSI mission.

Thanks to Dr. Nicola Fox, Associate Administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, for stopping by SSL to tell us about the latest opportunities with NASA science. We were happy to provide an update on the ESCAPADE MISSION, and hopefully you’ll enjoy the LEGO @cosi-explorer.bsky.social set.

COSI is coming together! @ucbssl.bsky.social’s senior aerospace engineer Christopher Smith and aerospace instrumentation mechanical engineer Matt Rubly recently assembled the mission’s 16 germanium detectors.

Congrats to Isidro Pena, an undergraduate research assistant at SSL who works on the @cosi-explorer.bsky.social! Pena was one of the undergraduate winners of the Chambliss Astronomy Achievement Student Award poster competition at the 248th meeting of the @aas.org! 🙌🎉🧪🔭 aas.org/posts/news/2...

The recent FOXSI-5 mission demonstrates potential of advanced X-ray imaging and sounding rockets for solar physics.

Davin Larson, SSL project scientist describes the SupraThermal Ion Sensor (STIS) instrument on NOAA's SOLAR-1 spacecraft. youtube.com/shorts/hYnJD...

COSI was covered in this article published by @us.theconversation.com. One of COSI’s science objectives—to seek out the source of the gamma ray signature of matter/antimatter annihilation—may help reveal whether the center of our galaxy is rich in dark matter. theconversation.com/upcoming-tel...

NASA has finally confirmed that MAVEN is lost and not recoverable, months ago it emerged from behind Mars and a fragment of telemetry suggested it might be spinning fast. Not only was It doing good atmospheric science, it was a relay spacecraft for rovers on the surface. www.nasa.gov/news-release...

Check out this episode of @space.com's podcast. Robert Lillis discusses the ESCAPADE mission, the potential for its unique trajectory and his own journey to Mars science.

Don't miss @missiontopsyche.bsky.social's closest approach to Mars this afternoon at 12:28 Pacific Time. eyes.nasa.gov/apps/solar-s...

SSL Director Lindy Elkins-Tanton spoke to @sciam.bsky.social on her new book, Mission Ready: How to Build Teams That Perform under Pressure. "The ability that one in a leadership position has to try to help everyone else succeed is an incredible gift," says Elkins-Tanton. tinyurl.com/54tvnepz

Thanks to Evgenya Shkolnik, professor of astrophysics at the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University, who delivered our final talk of the semester on the SPARKS mission, which is seeking out habitable exoplanets in our galaxy. 🙏 to @mathmoves.bsky.social for hosting.

NASA's @missiontopsyche.bsky.social is approaching Mars for a gravity assist—a great chance to image the Red Planet.🔴 "...if...we can do important testing and calibration..., that would be the icing on the cake,” said Psyche PI and SSL Director Lindy Elkins-Tanton. science.nasa.gov/blogs/psyche...

#FOXSI-5, a NASA-led sounding rocket mission that will study the X-rays produced by large solar flares, is ready for launch. Principal investigator Milo Buitrago-Casas is at @uafairbanks.bsky.social's Poker Flat Research Range, preparing for launch. 🚀 www.gi.alaska.edu/news/poker-f...

DESI has completed its planned 3D map of the universe. Much of the cutting-edge technology that made the survey possible was developed at SSL. www.ssl.berkeley.edu/cutting-edge...

Victoria Coleman, Associate Provost of the Berkeley Air & Space Center, stopped by SSL to tell us about forthcoming opportunities with Berkeley's 36-acre innovation center at NASA's Ames campus. She stayed on for lunch and heard ideas for the center from SSL researchers.

Thanks to Dr. Umaa Rebbapragada for the amazing talk on AI and machine learning applications the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Thanks also to @mathmoves.bsky.social for hosting us again.

SSL's contributions to the Artemis 2 mission were featured in the @dailycal.bsky.social. “Even though we’re playing a small role, it still feels good to be part of it in some way,” said ground station engineer Warren Rexroad. www.dailycal.org/news/campus/...

Great talk by Matt Gialich founder and CEO of @astroforge.bsky.social at SSL this afternoon. The conference room was standing room only as we all packed inside to learn more about DeepSpace-2 and its upcoming mission to land on an asteroid. 🙏 for flying up to the Bay to tell us about it.

The Berkeley Ground Station dish is tracking ARTEMIS 2! We're collecting doppler data to send back to the NASA SCaN project.

Jupiter’s lightning isn’t just bigger—it’s hundreds of times more powerful. Using new Nasa Juno data, @ucbssl.bsky.social scientists revealed storms far more extreme than anything on Earth. news.berkeley.edu/2026/03/23/l...

Check out this @science.org story on SSL planetary scientist Mike Wong's study of Jovian lightning. Wong analyzed data from NASA’s Juno spacecraft and found that lightning storms on Jupiter can release energy equivalent to multiple nuclear bombs. www.science.org/content/arti...

Meet NASA’s COmpton Spectrometer and Imager (COSI). Launching in 2027, COSI is a wide-field gamma-ray telescope that will study extreme objects, environments, and events in the Milky Way and beyond. science.nasa.gov/mission/cosi/

Big Give is TODAY! 🎉Learn more about SSL's history below, and please consider donating to support our mission in education, innovation and discovery.👇 #CalBigGive givingday.berkeley.edu/giving-day/1...

Robert Lillis discusses the unique advantages of pursuing a career in space science at Berkeley. 🚀 Support space education, innovation and discovery by donating to SSL. #CalBigGive begins tonight at 9PM.👇 givingday.berkeley.edu/giving-day/1...

NASA's ESCAPADE mission is now studying Earth's magnetotail. PI Robert Lillis describes this first ever visit to a distant region of the magnetosphere. Read more 👇 ssl.berkeley.edu/escapade-mag...