ufabc participates in major research projects worldwide, among them the presence of the university in the largest scientific project of all time, the large hadron collider (lhc) of the european organization for nuclear research (cern) that is operating the largest particle accelerator ever built and also in the dzero experiment of the fermi national accelerator laboratory (fermilab) of the united states department of energy that conducts research on the basic structure of matter in the second-largest particle accelerator in the world. the university has a presence in the first brazilian space mission to deep space, the mission aster ("missão aster"), of the brazilian space agency, which provides for the launching of a space probe in 2015.