![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1-pia26725-astronaut-jessica-meir-assists-with-hardware-updates-for-nasas-cold-atom-lab-1.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure>Astronauts aboard the International Space Station have switched on NASA\u2019s newly upgraded Cold Atom Lab, a one-of-a-kind facility designed to improve how scientists explore the fundamental workings of matter and develop new quantum technologies. By leveraging the unique environment of microgravity in space, the lab can accomplish cutting-edge science impossible to do anywhere else.<\/p>\n
Quantum science is the study of matter at the smallest scales, like atoms, electrons, and single particles of light. While it\u2019s easy to imagine atoms as billiard balls bouncing off one another, they also exhibit wave-like behavior, can exist simultaneously in two places at once, and may even pass through one another.<\/p>\n
About the size of a minifridge and operated from Earth, the Cold Atom Lab<\/a> chills atoms to temperatures below minus 459 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 237 degrees Celsius). At this extreme cold, just above absolute zero, atoms form a large quantum object called a Bose\u2011Einstein condensate, or BEC, a collection of matter waves that is a fifth state of matter beyond solids, liquids, gases, and plasma. This object follows the rules of quantum mechanics despite being much larger than subatomic particles, and the microgravity of low Earth orbit helps make the waves even larger.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the coldest temperatures, matter behaves drastically different from anything we have experienced,\u201d said Jason Williams, project scientist for Cold Atom Lab at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which built the facility. \u201cThe wavelike nature of matter dominates, and ultracold matter can behave in ways that are not only unexpected, but that also enable extremely precise measurements of time, gravity, and motion. The lab has lots of tools \u2014 especially with this latest upgrade \u2014 to let us probe the nature of the universe.\u201d<\/p>\n The project supports five international teams studying fundamental physics. It also tests the space-readiness of quantum tools that could support future Earth science and space exploration missions.<\/p>\n The heart of the Cold Atom Lab is a complex set of instruments called its science module. An upgraded module launched on April 11<\/a> as part of a Commercial Resupply Services mission to the space station<\/a>, enabling new kinds of experiments.<\/p>\n For each experiment, a strip of rubidium or potassium metal is heated to as high as 750 F (400 C) \u2014 hot enough to form a gas within the facility\u2019s vacuum chamber. Lasers tuned to specific frequencies are then fired at the gas, draining the energy from these atoms, and cooling them by slowing them down. Once this gas has completed the laser-cooling stage, a magnetic trap captures and holds the gas in place. Through a series of complex techniques, the laboratory reduces an atom cloud\u2019s energy further, bringing it close to a standstill and maximizing its time in microgravity.<\/p>\n While facilities for studying ultracold gases exist on Earth, the Cold Atom Lab can study quantum gases in microgravity for longer periods of time and at even lower temperatures. Conducting these experiments in low gravity allows scientists to study larger quantum waves that also interact for longer times with gravity. To harness these benefits, the Cold Atom Lab essentially shrinks an atom physics lab, typically the size of an entire room filled with lasers and tabletop mirrors, to fit within an experiment rack aboard the space station.<\/p>\n \u201cAs the first project to create Bose-Einstein condensates in orbit, we\u2019re demonstrating that we can make quantum technology work reliably in space,\u201d said Ethan Elliott, deputy project scientist for Cold Atom Lab at JPL. \u201cIn the previous century, there was a quantum revolution that led to lasers, cellphones, and MRIs for medical imaging. We\u2019re performing quantum 2.0 \u2014 direct manipulation of large quantum states \u2014 and we hope for similar gains in quantum tech by advancing this science in orbit.\u201d<\/p>\n The latest upgrade is the fourth since the Cold Atom Lab arrived at the space station in 2018. Key improvements include a newly designed magnetic trap that changes the shape of the quantum gas clouds, allowing scientists to test different properties related to their atoms. The upgrade also features redesigned metal strips that act as sources for those gas clouds.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the closest thing we have to controlling the boundary of the quantum world,\u201d said Kamal Oudrhiri, project manager of Cold Atom Lab at JPL, referring to those low temperatures. \u201cThis new upgrade pushes that boundary even further.\u201d<\/p>\n The upgrade, Oudrhiri added, \u201cdemonstrates NASA\u2019s ability to maintain U.S. leadership in space-based quantum technologies while maturing future quantum instruments, such as matter-wave interferometers for fundamental physics missions, positioning, navigation, timing, and gravity sensing of Earth, the Moon, and beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, JPL designed, built, and operates the Cold Atom Lab, which is sponsored by the Biological and Physical Sciences<\/a> division of NASA\u2019s Science Mission Directorate at the agency\u2019s headquarters in Washington. The\u202fdivision pioneers\u202fscientific discovery and enables exploration by\u202fusing space environments to conduct investigations\u202fthat are not possible on Earth.\u202fStudying biological and physical phenomena under extreme conditions allows researchers to\u202fadvance\u202fthe\u202ffundamental scientific knowledge\u202frequired to go farther and stay longer in space, while also benefiting life on Earth.\u202f<\/p>\n To learn more about Cold Atom Lab, visit:<\/p>\n https:\/\/nasa.gov\/cold-atom-laboratory\/<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Andrew Good 2026-039<\/p>\nHow it works<\/strong><\/h2>\n
More about Cold Atom Lab<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Media Contact<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-2433
andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov<\/a><\/p>\nExplore More<\/h2>\n<\/div><\/div>\n