Artist concept of a magneto-optical trap and atom chip to be used by NASA Cold Atom Laboratory CAL aboard the International Space Station.

Cold Atom Laboratory (CAL) physicist David Aveline works in the CAL test bed, which is a replica of the CAL facility that stays on Earth. Scientists use the test bed to run tests and understand what is happening inside CAL while it is operating on the International Space Station. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA23001

The Cold Atom Laboratory consists of two standardized containers that will be installed on the International Space Station. The larger container is called a "quad locker," and the smaller container is called a "single locker." The quad locker contains CAL's physics package, or the compartment where CAL will produce clouds of ultra-cold atoms. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA22562

Astronaut Ricky Arnold assists with the installation of NASA's Cold Atom Laboratory (CAL) on the International Space Station. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA22920

The Cold Atom Laboratory (CAL), packaged in a protective layer, is loaded onto a Northrop Grumman (formerly Orbital ATK) Cygnus spacecraft for its trip to the International Space Station. The facility launched in May 2018 from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA22919

Astronaut Christina Koch unloads new hardware for the Cold Atom Lab aboard the International Space Station the week of Dec. 9, 2020. The Cold Atom Laboratory launched to the space station on May 21, 2018, aboard a Northrop Grumman (formerly Orbital ATK) Cygnus spacecraft from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Designed and built at JPL, CAL is sponsored by the International Space Station Program at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, and the Space Life and Physical Sciences Research and Applications (SLPSRA) Division of NASA's Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA23404

In January 2020, members of the Cold Atom Lab operations team assisted remotely in a hardware upgrade to Cold Atom Lab while the facility was still aboard the International Space Station. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA23861

Shown here, the "physics package" inside NASA's Cold Atom Lab, where ultracold clouds of atoms called Bose-Einstein condensates are produced. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA22563

This sequence of false-color images shows the formation of a Bose-Einstein condensate in the Cold Atom Laboratory prototype at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory as the temperature gets progressively closer to absolute zero.

Astronaut Christina Koch assists with a hardware upgrade for NASA's Cold Atom Lab aboard the International Space Station in January 2020. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA23862

Members of the Cold Atom Laboratory team at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory are seen here with their ground-based testbed, which can reliably create a Bose-Einstein condensate.

iss057e106407 (11/20/2018) -- A view of the Cold Atom Lab (CAL) in the Destiny module aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The Cold Atom Laboratory (CAL) produces clouds of atoms that are chilled to about one ten billionth of a degree above absolute zero -- much colder than the average temperature of deep space. At these low temperatures, atoms have almost no motion, allowing scientists to study fundamental behaviors and quantum characteristics that are difficult or impossible to probe at higher temperatures