The Space Astronomy Laboratory (SAL) is a unit of the Astronomy Department at the the University of Wisconsin - Madison. SAL designs and builds instruments for the Department of Astronomy. These instruments help the Astronomy Department's faculty to do research in both space-based and ground-based astronomy. Research in space has included experiments on X-15s, the 1st OAO satellite, one of the five original Hubble instruments (the High Speed Photometer), and the WUPPE telescope on the Astro-1 and -2 Shuttle payloads.

Current space research includes the FUSP sounding rocket and the mighty Star Tracker 5000, part of a sounding rocket control system that performs yaw-pitch-roll control of sub-orbital rockets, autonomous attitude determination, and Progressive Image Transmission for low-bandwidth imaging from space.

Ground-based projects include the WIYN High Resolution Infrared Camera, Southern African Large Telescope's Robert Stobie Spectrograph (formerly PFIS), the Wisconsin H-Alpha Mapper, control system software for the WIYN 3.5m Telescope, the Half-wave Polarimeter at Pine Bluff Observatory, and the Space Place outreach facility.

For comments or information about this site please contact the SAL webmaster.