The history of the laboratory begins with observations of the first artificial satellite of the Earth, which were carried out on October 6, 1957. The observations were carried out with the track of the artificial satellite of the Earth being plotted on the map of the starry sky. Bratiychuk Motrya Vasylivna became the founder of the laboratory. She was the head of the laboratory for 44 years. In the 1960s, the Laboratory was expanded to a leading laboratory and organizationally became a part of the Problem Research Laboratory of Physical Electronics (PRL PE) of Uzhhorod State University.

Since 1969, at Uzhhorod University, on the basis of the laboratory, specialization and postgraduate studies in astrophysics have been opened, to train personnel for the Laboratory of Space Research (LSR) and other scientific and educational institutions of Ukraine.

In 1972, with the help of Odesa astrophysicists, the employees of the LSR produced a specialized satellite electrophotometer for terrestrial photometry of man-made objects. In 1982, a second two-channel electrophotometer was used.  Subsequently, it began to conduct colorimetric and polarization observations of the artificial satellite of the Earth, which became the beginning of several more scientific directions of research in LSR — the application of solving inverse problems for the identification of space objects, the study of the impact of disturbances from the surrounding space environment on the artificial satellite of Earth. At the end of the 70s of the 20th century, the LSR team of Uzhhorod State University took a leading position in the field of recognition of unknown space objects.

The creation of the equipment complex allowed the laboratory staff to conduct research in another direction — photographic and photometric observations of small bodies of the Solar System and the phenomena of the Moon, planets, and asteroids covering the stars.

Already during the years of Ukrainian independence, the Laboratory developed a method for estimating the magnitude of disturbances acting at a specific height on an artificial satellite of the Earth, based on the results of the analysis of changes in the self-rotation and orientation of unguided artificial satellites of the Earth. The use of this method made it possible to estimate the relative changes in the solar constant over an 11-year cycle with an accuracy of the same order as the expensive measurements of solar radiation on board spacecraft. The effectiveness of the method was also confirmed by the results of observations on the 22-year interval of the Japanese artificial satellite of the Earth "Ajisai".  On their basis, the ultra-fine interaction between the self-rotation of this artificial satellite of the Earth and the influence of solar radiation on the upper layers of the Earth's atmosphere was discovered in LSR. The nature of the influence on the proper rotation of a series of artificial satellites of the Earth of the rather complex interaction of the gravitational fields of the Sun and the Moon has been revealed.

In the summer of 2010, communication with the Egyptian satellite "Egyptsat", manufactured by Ukrainian designers at the Design Bureau "Pivdenne", was interrupted. The radio media could not deal with the situation.  Then the developers turned to photometrists at the LSR UzhNU. Literally, after several successful recordings of changes in the brightness of this artificial satellite of the Earth and their operational processing at LSR UzhNU, a real picture of what is happening with the artificial satellite of the Earth in orbit was given, and this helped the designers to establish the reason for this behavior of the satellite and solve the problem.

In November 2011, after two weeks of torture, Russian ballisticians turned to us for help. Their Phobos-Grunt space station, placed in an intermediate orbit, became "uncontrollable". They cannot establish the reasons for her refusal to work.  Within 10 days, the results of the analysis of our photometric observations of this design bureau were sent to the Scientific and Production Association named after S. A. Lavochkin with a clear description of the picture of the "behavior" of the station in orbit. A few days later, having weighed all the pros and cons, the Russian Flight Control Center directed the interplanetary station from orbit into the Atlantic Ocean.