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.

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.

More information on CAL is online at: http://coldatomlab.jpl.nasa.gov.