A series of three laboratories flown on Spacelab missions aboard the space shuttle to investigate the interactions of the Sun on the Earth’s atmosphere.

ATLAS-1 was launched on 24 March 1992 on Atlantis and returned on 2 April. It had 12 instruments (from the USA, France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Japan) to study ultraviolet astronomy, atmospheric chemistry, solar radiation, and space plasma physics.

ATLAS-2 was flown on Discovery, launched on 8 April 1993 and returned 17 April. It collected data on the relationship between the Sun’s energy output and the Earth’s middle atmosphere, focusing on the effects of this on the ozone layer.

ATLAS-3 was launched on Atlantis on 3 November 1994 and landed on 14 November. It measured the northern hemisphere’s middle atmosphere in late autumn, when the Antarctic ozone hole diminishes, to study the effects of the hole on the mid-latitudes.