The Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (LPL) is mainly situated within the University of Arizona campus. There are three buildings altogether; the Kuiper and Sonett Space Sciences buildings are located within the campus itself, and the Micheal J. Drake building is located off-campus. 

 

The institute was developed in 1960 by Gerard Kuiper under the direction of the University of Arizona, and it was chosen because of its proximity to observatories such as the Kitt Peak National Observatory and the Mt. Hopkins Whipple Observatory. The institute has been involved in the majority of NASA funded space missions in some way or another, either by providing academics or offering advice.

 

They are currently involved in a large number of projects, including Spacewatch and the Catalina Sky Survey, both of which are tracking asteroids in the solar system. The Catalina Sky Survey in particular is looking for Near Earth Objects (NEOs) and Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs) to help to avoid the risk of a collision from a solar system object, which could be potentially catastrophic for life as we know it. They are also tracking objects to update current catalogues of these asteroids and comets. 

 

Other current projects include the VIMS colour CCD on the Cassini mission, which can observe wavelengths of light between around 300-5000nm, far beyond what our eyes see is visible, which is generally between 400-750nm. They are also involved in the MESSENGER mission which has taken never before seen images of the surface of Mercury, as well as MAVEN which is the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN. This mission launched in November of 2013, and so has not reached the surface of Mars yet. This craft will analyse the upper atmosphere and ionosphere with respect to interactions with the solar wind, to learn more about the evolution of Mars' atmosphere and its habitability.

 

As well as the projects which are currently underway, there are also many that are being planned for the future. The Solar Probe Plus is a mission which intends to explore the corona of the Sun for the first time. The launch date is set to be in 2018, with data being collected by 2024. Another future prospect is the Osiris-REX, which is proposed to launch in 2016. This probe will hopefully return a pristine asteroid sample to Earth which will give us an insight into the chemical components that make-up asteroids. It is thought that asteroids that have collided with the Earth in the past have dramatically changed the chemical composition of our atmosphere, and possibly providing us with the organic compounds to have initiated the start of life on our planet. By providing us with a pristine sample of one of these rocks, we can analyse the components without the adverse effects that the Earth's atmoshphere imposes when meteorites fall through our atmosphere.