Upgrades and Future Capabilities for NASA's Cold Atom Lab

The robust production, control, and study of ultracold quantum gases has recently been established in the microgravity environment of space, where the essentially limitless free-fall allows researchers to pursue novel fundamental physics investigations and enhance the sensitivity of classes of quantum sensors such as matter-wave interferometers. Such studies have been conducted with NASA's multi-user Cold Atom Lab (CAL) facility, which has operated onboard the International Space Station since its launch in 2018. These include the first space-borne creation of a single (87Rb) and dual species (87Rb & 41K) Bose-Einstein Condensate, and more recently the observation of interspecies interactions, and the demonstration of dual-species atom interferometry. In addition to the toolbox of capabilities originally built into CAL, near-term instrument upgrades are planned to enable novel science and to mature spaceborne quantum technologies for precision sensing applications. This poster discusses the addition of a mesoscopic atom-chip-based trap and presents the compatibility tests for an optical dipole trap as potential upgrades to the CAL instrument. We will also discuss our near-term research plans to utilize optical potentials to mature the technology of precision quantum-gas-based sensors in space for future fundamental physics mission concepts.