Below you will find a list of current Lowell Center for Space Science and Technology (LoCSST) news and announcements. If you are looking for past ones, please visit our Past News and Announcements page.

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2026 News and Announcements

May 2026: 

  • Professor Mei-Yun Lin will present “Metallic Ions Near the Moon: Impact of Solar Activity and Lunar Position” and “From Moon to Earth: Transport of Lunar Metallic Ions in the Magnetotail” at the Japan Geoscience Union

April 2026: 

March 2026: 

  • The UMass Lowell Rocketry Club (Joshua Barosin and team) is building and flying a rocket and the Lowell Center for Space Science and Technology (LoCSST) designed / built Kiwi satellite inside the rocket will be collecting data. Sunip Mukherjee and his team are hoping to get a live telemetry during flight.  It will record acceleration, rotation, magnetic field, temperature, pressure, and altitude
    • The launch will take place on Monday, March 16 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. It will be on the same field Robert Goddard flew the first Modern Rocket 100 years ago, which is now the Pakachoag Golf Course. The town of Auburn is expecting this to be a large event, and they have done a safety plan for at least 10,000 people!  We do not know yet if there is a set launch order, but Josh is estimating a 1-2 p.m. for UMass Lowell (UML) to fly!
    • The Rocketry Club is planning to use 2 GoPros for slow-motion footage from the pad of launch and liftoff, and there will be at least three club members with good digital single-lens reflex cameras (DSLRs) we use for stills so stay tuned for footage and photos of this exciting event! Josh has also been working on getting UML Rocketry streaming for their launches.

  • Congratulations to Lowell Center for Space Science and Technology (LoCSST) graduate students-Charmi Patel and Michael Jones and undergraduate students-Joshua Fitzpatrick, Anthony DeVasto, Julie Sage, Jeremias Castillo, and Destinee Jeanty on their Massachusetts Space Grant Spring awards! Way to go team!

  • The 29th annual Student Research and Community Engagement Symposium will take place on Tuesday, March 31
    • Physics graduate student, Michael Jones, will present "Focal plane wavefront correction for dark hole creation with a convolutional neural network on PICTURE-D”
    • Physics graduate student, Charmi Patel, will be featured in UMass Lowell Research social media channels in a new series “A Day in the Life of A Student Researcher” which will highlight the LoCSST / Massachusetts Alliance for Space Technology and Sciences (MASTS) space in video format
    • Samuel DiVasto will present "Abstract - Student Spaceflight Experiments Program Mission 21"

February 2026:

Women and Girls in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) Day on Tuesday, February 10:

  • Mei-Yun Lin presented “Space Weather Technology: Prepare for the Space Exploration”
UMass Lowell's Destinee Jeanty and Ananya Sahoo show visiting students research demonstrations.

Undergraduate student, Destinee Jeanty and research scientist, Ananya Sahoo show visiting students research demonstrations.

  • Destinee Jeanty gave a 3-minute lighting talk at the event. She spoke about her journey in a Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) field and inspired others!
Undergraduate student, Julie Sage, presenting “Research at UML” to visitors.

Undergraduate student, Destinee Jeanty and research scientist, Ananya Sahoo show visiting students research demonstrations.

  • Ananya Sahoo presented a hands-on outreach demonstration in the science exhibition room using a scaled-down 3D printed PICTURE model and its pointing system
LoCSST team volunteers: Akande, Destinee Jeanty, Julie Sage, Guangfeng Yu, Ananya Sahoo, Charmi Patel.

Lowell Center for Space Science and Technology (LoCSST) team volunteers for the event included  (from right to left) Adedayo Akande, Destinee Jeanty, Julie Sage, Guangfeng Yu, Ananya Sahoo, Charmi Patel, and Mei-Yun Lin (not pictured).

  • Destinee Jeanty and Charmi Patel had a table in the Science Exhibition room for KIWI (Kiwi is a single board bench-top Satellite)
UMass Lowell Undergraduate student, Destinee Jeanty, presenting her research thus far: "What Have I Done".

Undergraduate student, Destinee Jeanty, presenting her research activities thus far as a student at University of Massachusetts Lowell.  She continues her work with Lowell Center for Space Science and Technology (LoCSST) Spring semester.

2025 News and Announcements

UMass Lowell attendees pose for a photo at the America Geophysical Union 2025.

LoCSST attendees at AGU included from left to right Physics Graduate Student Charmi Patel, Professor Mei-Yun Lin, Professor Supriya Chakrabarti, post-doctoral researcher Sunip Mukherjee, Professor Ofer Cohen, and Physics Graduate Student Lukas Hanson.

December 2025: Several presentations were made by LoCSST team members at American Geophysical Union 2025 (AGU25)

  • Graduate student Charmi Patel presented "All-Season Auroral Observations with High Throughput and Multislit Imaging Spectrograph (HiT&MIS): Nighttime Energy and Flux Retrieval of Auroral Electrons and Progress Toward Sunlit Conditions," featuring the High Throughput and Multi Slit Imaging Spectrograph.
  • Doctoral Graduate Sunip Mukherjee presented "Applying newer models and techniques to remote sensing of geophysical conditions."
  • Graduate student Lukas Hanson presented "Probing the Cosmic Shoreline - Modeling the Impact of Enhances Solar Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) and Stellar EUV spectra on Earth-like Ionospheres."
  • Professor Supriya Chakrabarti presented: "Recent Developments and Future Directions of Instrumentation and related Tools for Optical Aeronomy."

Graduate student Charmi Patel presenting "All-Season Auroral Observations with High Throughput and Multislit Imaging Spectrograph (HiT&MIS): Nighttime Energy and Flux Retrieval of Auroral Electrons and Progress Toward Sunlit Conditions," featuring the High Throughput and Multi Slit Imaging Spectrograph.
  • Professor Ofer Cohen is chairing the poster session "The Nexus for Exoplanet System Science (NExSS) – Building a Community for Interdisciplinary Research Across NASA Science Divisions."
  • Professor Mei-Yun Lin presented the poster "Tracing Lunar Metallic Ions into Earth’s Inner Magnetosphere.”
  • Professor Ofer Cohen presented “The Upper Atmospheres of Extrasolar Planets."
Graduate student Lukas Hanson with Professor Ofer Cohen during PhD defense titled Probing the Cosmic Shoreline.

Graduate student Lukas Hanson with Professor Ofer Cohen during his doctoral defense titled "Probing the Cosmic Shoreline: the Role of Extreme Ultraviolet Radiation in Exoplanet Atmosphere Retention".

November 2025: 

  • Congratulations to Graduate Student Lukas Hanson on successfully defending his PhD dissertation titled “Probing the Cosmic Shoreline: the Role of Extreme Ultraviolet Radiation in Exoplanet Atmosphere Retention.”
High Throughput and Multislit Imaging Spectograph Lowell Center for Space Science and Technology logo.

High throughput and multislit imaging spectograph by LoCSST.

  • Professor Mei-Yun Lin presented the talk "Transport and energization of heavy ions in earth’s high latitude ionosphere” at MIT Haystack Observatory.

October 2025: 

  • Following a full recalibration, HiT&MIS (High-resolution optical spectrograph) has been redeployed to Kiruna, Sweden to provide critical ground-based observations for the ORIGINS Rocket Campaign, led by Stockholm University, during its second launch attempt to measure hydroxyl (OH) airglow.
Space Centre Australia Locsst agreement public support turnout.

We were thrilled with the huge turnout of supporters for the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Space Centre Australia and UMass Lowell on October 23 at University Crossing.

Space Centre Australia members visit UML research facilities.

Above: Some faculty, staff, and student members of the LoCSST team with Space Centre Australia guests following Massachusetts Alliance for Space Technology and Sciences (MASTS) lab and Space Lab tours and discussions in Wannalancit.

Below: Jason Martel, Lead Mechanical Engineer at LoCSST, talks about the MASTS Thermal Vacuum Chamber, which tests components under simulated space conditions.

Space Center for Australia visiting research facilities at UMass Lowell including the Fabric Discovery Center.

Above: Professor Alkim Akyurtlu and Assistant Professor Oshadha Ranasingha provided tour of RURI to Space Centre Australia guests.

Below: Professor Ramaswamy Nagarajan and his team at UMass Lowell's Fabric Discovery Center provide a tour to Space Centre Australia guests.

Post doctorial researcher, Sunip Mukherjee, readying remote setup of PICTURE-D for launch at Fort Sumner, New Mexico.

Post doctorial researcher, Sunip Mukherjee, readying remote setup of PICTURE-D for launch at Fort Sumner, New Mexico.

  • CHARIOT, an instrument built by Post-Doctoral Researcher Sunip Mukherjee, successfully flew as a pathfinder and technology demonstration for the Chickadee CubeSat Bus aboard the PICTURE-D gondola. The instrument recorded environmental data and operated nominally throughout the flight. After recovery, CHARIOT was confirmed to remain fully functional, marking an important achievement that raised the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of both its hardware and software systems.
PICTURE-D getting ready to launch at Fort Sumner, New Mexico

PICTURE-D getting ready to launch at Fort Sumner, New Mexico.