Below you will find a list of past news and announcements. If you are looking for current news, please visit our main News and Announcements page.

2025 News and Announcements

Professor Chakrabarti at Institute of Systems and Robotics Lisboa

Professor Supriya Chakrabarti (center) with Rodrigo Ventura and João Paulo Monteiro (right) during his visit to the IST NanosatLab at Técnico Oeiras.

  • September 2025: Professor Supriya Chakrabarti visited Técnico Oeiras to tour the Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) NanoSat Lab ground station and facilities in Lisbon, Portugal.
  • September 2025: Professor Supriya Chakrabarti will meet with scientists at Harvard University to discuss LoCSST’s Massachusetts Alliance for Space Technology and Sciences (MASTS) program, specifically our Chickadee instrument-a by-product of a cubesat deployment into space. That by-product can be used to host a small instrument by itself.
  • September 2025: Congratulation to the following students for receiving funding support for their LoCSST research projects from The Massachusetts Space Grant Consortium!
    • Graduate students: Lukas Hanson, Michael Jones, Charmi Patel, Anthony DeVasto, John Kanaris.
    • Undergraduate students: Julie Sage, Adam Connolly, Joshua Fitzpatrick, Destinee Jeanty, Lawrence Mooney, Samuel DiVasto.
National Space Administration hangar with Picture-D satellite, waiting to be launched.

Top: The NASA hangar in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, where the PICTURE-D instrument was readied for launch.

Bottom: The instrument inside the hangar.

Graduate Student Charmi Patel attending the NASA Heliophysics Summer School.

Physics graduate student and LoCSST Research Assistant Charmi Patel attends the NASA Heliophysics Summer School.

  • August 2025: Charmi Patel, Physics graduate student and LoCSST Research Assistant, attended the NASA Heliophysics summer school.
Guangfeng Yu presenting his poster “PICTURE-D Polarimeter” at Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers conference.

Graduate student Guangfeng Yu presents his poster “PICTURE-D Polarimeter” at the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) conference.

Michael Jones standing in front of his poster “Convolutional Neural Network Low Order Wavefront Control for PICTURE-D”.

Graduate student Michael Jones presents “Convolutional Neural Network Low Order Wavefront Control for PICTURE-D” at SPIE conference.

  • August 2025: Several presentations were made by LoCSST team members at Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) as shown:
    • Guangfeng Yu presented "PICTURE-D polarimeter."
    • Michael Jones presented "Convolutional neural network low order wavefront control for PICTURE-D."
    • Timothy A. Cook presented "A Novel Asynchronous Integrating Latching (NAIL) deformable mirror controller."
    • Mitchell Bailey presented "NAIL: controlling Micro‑Electro‑Mechanical Systems (MEMS) deformable mirrors in the pico-Coulomb regime."
    • Christopher B. Mendillo presented "The PICTURE-D exoplanetary imaging balloon mission: pre-flight laboratory coronagraph demonstration."
    • Kuravi Hewawasam presented "Use of a liquid crystal display panel as a phase-only spatial light modulator for high order wavefront control."
Professor Supriya Chakrabarti being honored as an Optica Fellow.

Professor Supriya Chakrabarti receiving the Optica Fellow award.

  • July 2025: LoCSST hosted several undergraduate students from Boston University (BU), along with Brian Walsh and Joshua Semester. Mendillo gave an informal talk and tours on NASA PICTURE mission including previous and upcoming flights, instrumentation, and data collection. Professors Chakrabarti and Cook along with Lead Mechanical Engineer, Jason Martel, gave talks and tours of our new Massachusetts Alliance for Space Technology and Sciences (MASTS) lab facilities. We hope to continue our collaboration with BU in the very near future.
Charmi Patel presenting her poster “Multispectral Study of Sunlit Aurora Using HiT&MIS” at the CEDAR/GEM workshop.

Graduate student Charmi Patel presents her poster “Multispectral Study of Sunlit Aurora Using HiT&MIS: Preliminary Results” at the CEDAR/GEM workshop.

Charmi Patel presenting at the Cfa Boston presentation.

Graduate student Charmi Patel presenting at CfA Harvard on June 6, 2025.

  • June 2025 New England Space Science Consortium (NESSC) Meeting:
    • Graduate student, Charmi Patel, presented “Multispectral Study of Sunlit Aurora Using HiT&MIS : Preliminary Results.”​
    • Professor Supriya Chakrabarti presented "UMass Lowell Capabilities and Future Plans."
    • Professor Ofer Cohen presented “Computational Space Physics and Astrophysics at UMass Lowell."
    All presentations took place at the NESSC Meeting, held at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) on June 6.
Ciara Espaillat and Michael Sumner pictured with CubeSat

Professor Cook’s capstone students Ciara Espaillat and Michael Sumner (pictured here), and Tanner Jellison (not pictured) with CubeSat.

  • April 2025: Professor Cook’s capstone students Ciara Espaillat and Michael Sumner, and Tanner Jellison, have 3D printed a CubeSat structure with Z-Polymers’ filament, Tullomer. The structure will be tested in Massachusetts Alliance for Space Technology and Sciences (MASTS) Lab's thermal vacuum chamber and will undergo a Thermal Vacuum Cycle Test per NASA specifications. This test will provide valuable information about the materials high-vacuum performance and the future possibilities for 3D printing a CubeSat.
Students in the Space Mission Design class of Spring, 2025, with the two groups showing off the two instruments they designed.

Professor Chakrabarti with his students in the Space Mission Design class of Spring, 2025, with the two groups showing off the two instruments they designed for the class. The students pictured are Matthew Levasseur (first on left) Alex Fitzler (2nd from left) Michael Jones (2nd from left) Ciara Espaillat (4th from left) Kimson Lam (5th from left) Jonathan Seero (6th from left) Thomas Williams (last from left).

Pictured is Thad (Top left) shaking hands with Prof. Tim Cook (Top Right) and smiling with Prof. Chris Mendillo (Bottom right).

Pictured is Thad (Top left) shaking hands with Professor Tim Cook (Top Right) and smiling with Professor Chris Mendillo (Bottom Right).

  • March 2025: Congratulations to Thaddeus Potter on passing his Thesis defense. Way to go Thaddeus Potter!
  • March 2025: Graduate student, Thad Potter, will present his dissertation defense, Thermal Strain Analysis of a Balloon-Borne Coronagraph, on 3/27.
  • March 2025: Friends of LoCSST, Edwin Aguirre and Imelda Joson, were mentioned on WCVB-TV Channel 5 news about their photos of the Blood Moon in the Video forecast: Mild air, chance of rain over weekend.
  • March 2025: Professor Silas Laycock gave an interview with the Boston Globe: Will clouds get in the way of viewing tonight’s ‘blood worm moon’ total lunar eclipse?. New England’s 2024 total eclipse set a high bar, but March is stepping up with a double feature in the sky. “This is a pretty exciting month for eclipse watchers because we’re getting two eclipses - one of each kind,” said Silas Laycock, an astronomer and professor at UMass Lowell.
  • March 2025: Thaddeus Potter will defend his Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) thesis on March 27, his dissertation title is "Thermal Strain Analysis of a Balloon-Borne Coronagraph."
  • February 2025: Professor Ofer Cohen presented a virtual seminar at Rice University titled "Disk - Stellar corona Interaction in Protoplanetary Disks – an Heliophysicist Perspective" on February 28.
  • February 2025: UMass Lowell (UML) is now listed as a Carnegie Research 1 (R1) university, a prestigious designation used to identify the nation’s top research institutions.
  • February 2025: People joined astronomers on UML’s south campus Riverview field near the dome for views through the telescopes on February 18th, March 18th and April 22nd of this year. This free event was open to the public, and all ages were welcome!
  • February 2025: Professor Chakrabarti presented the seminar Optical Aeronomy Instrumentation and related activities at UMass Lowell and Boston College on February 19.
  • February 2025: Graduate student, Guangfeng Yu, attended a Career Accelerator event held by Optica from February 16-20, 2025.
  • January 2025: Professor Supriya Chakrabarti has been named as a Optica 2025 Fellow.
  • January 2025: Professor Chakrabarti presented "Forest Structure Measurements using a Novel Two-wavelength Lidar System" at the Srilekha Raha Memorial Computer Lab in Presidency University.
Picture of Charmi Patel attaching the final part (Electronics box) to HiT&MIS to complete the full mounting of HiT&MIS in the observatory dome using the 80/20 Aluminum structure.

Charmi Patel attaching the final part (Electronics box) to HiT&MIS to complete the full mounting of HiT&MIS in the observatory dome using the 80/20 Aluminum structure.

  • January 2025: Graduate student Charmi Patel travelled to Sweden to deploy HiT&MiS, our versatile imaging spectrograph instrument, in Kiruna, Sweden to support the "Oxygen and its Role in Generating and Influencing Nightglow (ORIGIN)" rocket campaign, led by Stockholm University, Department of Meteorology (MISU). HiT&MIS will capture key airglow emissions to evaluate launch conditions and contribute to the collaborative analysis of nightglow emissions for the campaign. Stay tuned for results and photos!
Supriya Chakrabarti (center) along with students and faculty from the Indian Centre for Space Physics

Supriya Chakrabarti (center) along with students and faculty from the Indian Centre for Space Physics where he presented a talk at the Space Exploration with Students Program.

  • January 2025: Supriya Chakrabarti presented the welcome address and a talk “Ground-based experiments and space flight missions for Space Exploration for students” at the Space Exploration Seminar at the Indian Center for Space Physics on January 3.
  • January 2025: Professor Tim Cook travelled to Princeton University on January 8-9 to present an invited talk at The Baryon Cycle in Galaxies: Processes and Consequences: A 2-Day Symposium Honoring the Legacy of Edward B. Jenkins.
UMass Lowell Distinguished Professor Medal: Professor Supriya Chakrabarti 2024-2027.
Professor Chakrabarti's distinguished professor medal.

2024 News and Announcements

Three people pictured inside UMass Lowell Schueller Observatory during first open night of Fall 2024.
A young observer checks out the inside UMass Lowell Schueller Observatory during the first open night of Fall 2024.
  • October 2024: Many students including Engineering and Physics showed up for the first public open night of fall semester. Though it was cloudy, folks got tours of the observatory and heard about the work our student astronomers are doing. This very interested young man joined in and his mom said “My son had the best birthday ever and we all learned so much. I know he really appreciated all of you taking the time to treat his questions seriously and he left saying he was definitely going to be a scientist when he grows up. I know you are all so smart but you are even kinder!”
Charmi Patel pictured with the “Women in S.T.E.M.” panel at the Maine Space Conference.
Charmi Patel (Second from the right) with the “Women in S.T.E.M.” panel at the Maine Space Conference.
  • October 2024: Charmi Patel participated in the “Women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (S.T.E.M.)” panel at the Maine Space Conference organized on October 23, sharing insights and experiences in her field.
The Aurora Borealis pictured as it illuminates the skies over Lowell, MA.
Aurora Borealis pictured as it illuminated the skies over Lowell, Massachusetts.
  • October 2024: The Aurora Borealis illuminated the skies over Lowell, Massachusetts, on October 10, casting a vibrant glow above the Joseph Ouellette Memorial Bridge.
  • October 2024: Graduate student Thad Potter presented "A Structural, Thermal, and Optical Model of a High-Altitude Balloon Observatory" (ppt) at two locations: University of Memphis on October 23 and Rhodes College on October 31.
  • October 2024: The Schueller Observatory on Riverview Fields hosted a Spooky Public Observatory Night on Tuesday, October 29th at 6:30 PM. Attendees were encouraged to wear their Halloween costumes while they explored the night sky through telescopes. The event was open to all ages, and free parking was available at 900 Broadway St, Lowell.
  • October 2024: Professor Cohen gave an interview with WBUR on Why New England could see more of the Northern Lights — including this weekend.
  • September 2024: Congratulations to our Fall Massachusetts Space Grant Consortium awardees:
    • Thaddeus Potter
    • Michael Jones
    • Charmi Patel
    • Lukas Hanson
    • Aadith Arasu
    • Mitchell Bailey
    • Julie Sage
    • Adam Connolly
  • October 2024: Professor Supriya Chakrabarti presented “A new nanosat format for education: Design details and Status report” (Symposium B4 - 31st IAA Symposium on Small Satellite Missions) at the 75th International Astronautical Congress Milan, Italy 14-18 October 2024.
  • September 2024: Professor Chakrabarti presented the talk "A new technique designed to obtain ionospheric parameters from Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO) " at the United Kingdom (UK) Space Weather and Space Environment Meeting in Exeter, UK.
Charmi Patel at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory Long Range Imaging Radar, Haystack Auxiliary Radar sign.
Charmi Patel at MIT Haystack.
  • July 2024: Grad student, Charmi Patel, participated in The National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded 2024 Incoherent Scatter Radar (ISR) Summer School, which was held in person at Boston University between July 22-27, 2024. At the workshop, she learned to design and run an experiment using PFISR (Poker Flat Incoherent Scatter Radar) during a geomagnetically active period and went on a tour of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Haystack.
Picture of Sayantan Bhattacharya on left and Kalpa HenadhiraArachchige on right.
Sayantan Bhattacharya on left and Kalpa HenadhiraArachchige on right.
  • May 2024: Congratulations to our Physics PhD graduates Sayantan Bhattacharya and Kalpa HenadhiraArachchige
Picture of physics PhD graduate Sunip Mukherjee in their Commencement robes.
Physics doctoral graduate Sunip Mukherjee.
  • May 2024: Congratulations to our Physics PhD graduate Sunip Mukherjee
  • April 2024: UMass Lowell in the News: UMass Lowell Gets Lost in Space
  • April 2024: Let’s shoot for the stars like Robert Goddard: SpaceNews.com
  • April 2024: Timelapse of the Total Solar Eclipse of 2024, as observed from North Hero, Vermont.
Closeup of the total eclipse in April 2024. Image by Nick Sorabella
Eclipse captured by Nick Sorabella.
  • April 2024: Physics graduate student and LoCSST researcher, Nick Sorabella, captured this great shot of the eclipse during his travels!
  • April 16, 2024: LoCSST hosted a very successful Massachusetts Space Week Kickoff event in conjunction with The Space Consortium with approximately 100 faculty, staff and students from UMass Lowell, state officials, Massachusetts Alliance for Space Technology (MASTS) partners, the local public, and others attending. Stay tuned for photos!
  • April 2024 Student Research Symposium presentations:
    • Sayantan Bhattacharya presented "IC 10's X-ray Universe: Probing the Blue Supergiant X-ray Binary Population."
    • Charmi Patel presented "Preparation, Visualization, and inventory of Ultraviolet Airglow Intensities as Observed by LITES."
    • Mit Bailey presented "A Novel Controller for MEMS Deformable Mirrors Utilizing Actuator Capacitance."
    • Lukas Hanson presented "Using the Alfvèn Wave Solar Model to Study the Solar Wind of the Sun and Sun-like Stars."
  • April 2024: Sayantan Bhattacharya successfully defended his PhD dissertation on April 5 entitled “X-RAY BINARIES IN NEARBY DWARF GALAXY IC 10: NOT TO MENTION THE X-1."
  • April 2024: Professor Silas Laycock talked with WCAP-AM radio talk-show morning host about the Solar Eclipse on Friday, April 5.
  • March 2024: Professor Silas Laycock gave an interview about the eclipse to The Eagle-Tribune’s Monica Sager on Tuesday, April 2 at 10:30! Stay tuned for the article once available!
  • March 2024: Edwin Aguirre's article on the April 8 solar eclipse is now live in UML News: Here Are Some Tips on How to Safely Observe and Photograph the Eclipse
  • March 2024: Professor Silas Laycock and others spoke at Spring 2024’s Kennedy College of Sciences Conversation Starter on “Scientific Literacy and Communication” on March 13 from 3-6 p.m. in the SAAB-ETIC, Perry Atrium.
  • March 2024: Sunip Mukherjee virtually attended “Meeting the Challenges of Limited Observations for the Global Modelling of the Ionosphere-Thermosphere System” on March 8.
  • February 2024: (Feb. 29, 2024) – Physics Associate Professor Silas Laycock explains the science and history behind leap days in this live segment, available nationally on this platform. FOX Weather Channel: The science behind leap years
  • February 2024: An article on Professor Ofer Cohen’s paper was described on 2/21 in a Phys.org article: Possible atmospheric destruction of a potentially habitable exoplanet
  • February 2024: Congratulations to our 4 grad students- Charmi Patel, Mitchell Bailey, Thaddeus Potter, and Lukas Hanson-for receiving $3500 each for MASGC fellowships Spring24 semester!
  • January 2024: Professor Ofer Cohen presented the talk “Three-dimensional, Time-dependent MHD Simulation of Disk-Magnetosphere-Stellar Wind Interaction in a T Tauri, Protoplanetary System” at American Astronomical Society (AAS) New Orleans.
nick and poster
Nicholas Sorabella presenting his poster - "The SMILE Project: A User-friendly Suite to Search for and Model Self-lensing Binary Systems."
  • January 2024: Nicholas Sorabella presented the poster "The SMILE Project: A User-friendly Suite to Search for and Model Self-lensing Binary Systems" at AAS New Orleans.
  • January 2024: Graduate student Sayantan Bhattacharya presented IC 10's X-ray Universe: Probing the Blue Supergiant X-ray Binary Population (Sayantan Bhattacharya, Silas G. T. Laycock, Dimitris M. Christodoulou) at the AAS meeting in New Orleans.
  • January 2024: Professor Tim Cook presented NAIL: a Novel, Asynchronous, Integrating, Latching deformable mirror controller (Timothy Cook, Mitchell Bailey, Supriya Chakrabarti, Kuravi Hewawasam and Christopher Mendillo) at the American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting in New Orleans.
Students enjoying the Halloween-themed event at Schueller Observatory “spooky viewing party”.
  • October, 27 2023: Students enjoying the Halloween-themed event at Schueller Observatory “spooky viewing party”

2023 News and Announcements

  • December, 13 2023: Physics Associate Professor Silas Laycock told reporters conditions Wednesday evening would provide the best view of a meteor shower this year. He explained Geminids would be visible to the left of the constellation Orion’s Belt.(WBUR: UMass Lowell expert advises stargazers of meteor shower)
  • December 2023: Supriya Chakrabarti did a “pulsar podcast” entitled “What Kind of Space Research Happens in Massachusetts” with the Museum of Science.
  • December 2023: Mitchell Bailey successfully completed his qualifier today for a PhD in Computer Engineering – way to go Mit!
  • December 2023: Professor Cohen presented "The Possible Impact of a Close-in Exoplanet on Type-II Radio Burst Signature" at Fall American Geophysical Union (AGU) Meeting.
  • November, 21 2023: Mit Bailey successfully presented his literature survey paper/Phd qualifier “Free space communication systems and methods in the near-earth and lunar regimes.”
  • November, 11 2023: Congratulations to Lukas Hanson who successfully passed his MS Thesis Defense "Using the Space Weather Modeling Framework to Study the Solar Wind of the Sun and Sun-like Stars.”
  • November 10, 2023: Congratulations to Charmi Patel who successfully passed her MS Dissertation Proposal Defense in Physics on the title is "Airglow as seen by LITES."
  • November, 7 2023: Congratulations to Sunip Mukherjee for successfully defending his Ph.D. in Physics . The title is: Multi-Instrument, Multi-Location Observation and Modeling of the Upper Atmosphere-Ionosphere.
  • October 2023: Congratulations to Guangfeng Yu who successfully passed his defense on October 12! The tile is: Monolithic Achromatic Nulling Interferometric Coronagraph Contrast Measurement.
  • October, 13 2023: The meeting held at the Lanesville Community Center featured a wide-ranging talk by UMass Lowell Physics Professor Supriya Chakrabarti, director of the Lowell Center for Space Science and Technology.
    • Professor Chakrabarti reviewed a series of astrophysics and space science research projects, including the development, with student participation, of new instruments that are used with ground, balloon, and space-based platforms (including the Hubble) and MASTS, a "one-stop support system for innovators working on small spacecraft," with partners from academia, industry, and government.
  • September 2023: MASTS was featured in the following media
Symposium Picture 2023
  • April 2023: Congratulations to our graduate Student Research Symposium presentation winner, Nicholas Sorabella.

2022 News and Announcements

  • September 2022: Congratulations to Prof. Tim Cook on his award “EV: CLIN 1701 - AD2 - Investigation of Parachute Born Wind Sensing UV LIDAR” (HEROES/U.S. ARMY CCDC Soldier Center)
  • September 2022: Models Help Us Hunt for Hidden Stellar Remnants
  • September 2022: After two earlier attempts were cancelled due to high winds, UMass Lowell successfully launched a planet-finding telescope to the edge of the atmosphere on Sep. 28 from a NASA facility in New Mexico.  PICTURE-C spent 14 hours observing.
  • September 15, 2022: “What’s in the Sky Tonight” was presented by undergraduate student Liam Neely (7 - 7:15 p.m.) followed by “Beginners Mobile/DSLR Astrophotography” by graduate student Sayantan Bhattacharya (7:15 - 7:35 p.m.)
  • August 2022: Soumitra Hazra’s recent paper got nice exposure on the news via Phys.org: "One exciting way to find planets: Detect the signals from their magnetospheres"
  • August 2022: Graduate student Mitchell Bailey, along with undergraduate students Jeffrey LeMasurier and Bradley LeMasurier, are hard at work on the exciting(GLEE) opportunity. Inspired by NASA's Apollo Moon landings over 50 years ago, the Great Lunar Expedition for Everyone (GLEE) will be a catalyst for a new generation of space missions and explorers.
  • August 2022: "James Webb Space Telescope: An astronomer explains the stunning, newly released first images” by author Prof. Silas Laycock was published
  • August 2022: Kuravi Hewawasam will travel to Fort Sumner, N.M. to prepare for September 2022 launch of PICTURE-C. Stay tuned for more details of this exciting event!
  • July 2022: Congratulations to Chris Beaudoin on his NASA Award “Advancement of the Geodetic Reference Instrument Transponder for Small Satellites (GRITSS) to TRL6”
  • July 2022:" Graduate students Nicholas Sorabella and Sayantan Bhattacharya, along with Andre-Nicolas Chene(Gemini), Silas Laycock(UML), Breanna Binder(Cal Poly), Dimitris Christodoulou(UML) have been awarded directors discretionary observing time in GEMINI and Las Cumbres Observatory. They have received the data and working on the results that it will be sent to a journal for publication (the process will take at least 4-5 months).
  • July 2022: Thad Potter presented a poster at SPIE2022: STOP model implementation for the PICTURE-C exoplanetary imaging balloon mission, progress report I: thermal modeling and verification with flight data (pdf).
  • July 2022: Chris Mendillo presented the talk on The PICTURE-C exoplanetary imaging balloon mission: Laboratory coronagraph demonstrations of high-contrast imaging and low-order wavefront control.
  • June 2022: An article on the Roman Technology Fellowship has been published.“NASA Selects Mendillo for Fellowship Program, Awards Him $7M Grant”.
  • June 2022: Prof. Ofer Cohen was quoted in the EOS Article Coronal Dimmings Shine Light on Stellar CMEs
  • June 2022: Prof. Silas Laycock gave interview with The Conversation on Why does the Moon look close some nights and far away on other nights?
  • June 2022: Nicholas Sorabells presented "Modeling Long-Term Variability in Compact Object-Stellar Binary Systems For Mass Determination" at AAS 240 Meeting Pasadena. View the Modeling Long-Term Variability in Compact Object-Stellar Binary Systems For Mass Determination poster (pdf).
  • June 6, 2022: A group of high-school students and their teacher Brady Loomer, from St Marks School visited the Schueller Observatory for an evening of astronomical observations.
  • May 2022: Congratulations to Christopher Mendillo on receiving the prestigious Roman Technology Fellowship award from NASA Astrophysics Division.
  • May 2022: Congratulations to Prof. Christopher Mendillo and Supriya Chakrabarti and team on their 5 year NASA APRA award for “PICTURE-D: Planetary Imaging Coronagraph Testbed Using a Reusable Experiment for Debris Disks”
  • May 2022: How to watch and take great photos of the ‘Super Blood Moon eclipse’.
  • May 2022: Congratulations to MASGC Fellowship student awardees Thaddeus Potter, Mitchell Bailey, and Albert Farah.
  • May 2022: Graduate student, Sayantan Bhattacharya, gave an interview to NPR and Prof. Silas Laycock gave an interview to The Boston Globe on the upcoming solar eclipse (May 15), stand by for more details.
  • May 11, 2022: 6:30-7:30 p.m. in Dugan 101. Learn about the upcoming Lunar Eclipse happening on May 15, 2022
The fully assembled SPACE HAUC ground station, designed to communicate with the SPACE HAUC satellite over UHF and X-band radio frequencies. The dish and Yagi antenna assembly is attached to a mechanism which can aim and track the satellite as it crosses the sky.

2021 News and Announcements

  • December 10, 2021: Silas Laycock and his astronomers will host the Environmental, Earth and Atmospheric Science Department to the Schueller Observatory at 5:30 p.m.
  • December 2, 2021: Michele Woodland will be presenting her honors thesis titled "Giant Stars in the GAIA mission." The presentation will be streamed over Echo starting at 6 p.m.
  • December 2, 2021: The Schueller Observatory will hold a public open night from 6-9 p.m. Free parking is available starting after 3 p.m. in the Broadway Lot of UMass Lowell on south campus. A virtual campus map is available to help locate parking.
  • November 16, 2021: SPACE HAUC was successfully deployed from the International Space Station. The project is detailed in the article "UML-built Satellite Is Now Orbiting the Earth."
  • November 4, 2021: The Schueller Observatory held a public open night from 6-9 p.m.
  • October 28, 2021: Congratulations to Mitchell Bailey on being approved for a Space Grant Fall 2021 fellowship.
  • October 26, 2021: The SPACE HAUC ground station, designed to communicate with the SPACE HAUC satellite over UHF and X-band radio frequencies, was assembled and can be seen to the right. The dish and Yagi antenna assembly is attached to a mechanism which can aim and track the satellite as it crosses the sky.
  • October 12, 2021: Silas Laycock gave a telephone interview for the Boston Globe on this past weekend's geomagnetic storm and solar flare. The interview is titled "Boston Globe: You may be able to see the Northern Lights tonight, thanks to geomagnetic storm."
  • October 12, 2021: SPACE HAUC and its companion PR CuNaR2 deployed at 12:30 p.m. UTC (08:30 a.m. EDT). A video of the deployment is available on YouTube.
Professor Silas Laycock is standing in front of the observatory. He is presenting to a group full of people who are also pictured.
  • October 7, 2021: The Schueller Observatory held a public open night from 6-9 p.m. which was a great success with many students bringing their parents to the event. These will continue the first Thursday of every month. Free parking is available starting after 3 p.m. in the Broadway Lot of UMass Lowell on south campus. A virtual campus map is available to help locate parking. In the image to the right Silas Laycock is giving a talk about the observatory and its history.
  • October 3, 2021: LoCSST had a table at the UMass Lowell open house at the Tsongas Center on October 3 from 9 a.m. to Noon. Many interested participants stopped by to learn what we do.
PICTURE-C is suspended from the launch vehicle for compatibility test. People are surrounding PICTURE-C.

PICTURE-C

  • September 24, 2021: PICTURE-C (shown to the right suspended from the launch vehicle for compatibility test) will attempt launch next fall.
  • September 23, 2021: The Schueller Observatory’s first viewing event open to UMass Lowell students, faculty and staff was held on September 23 from 6-9 p.m. Dozens came out to see the telescopes and to hear about what's happening in astronomy at UMass Lowell. The plan is to hold public events the first Thursday of every month beginning October 7. Free parking is available starting after 3 p.m. in the Broadway Lot of UMass Lowell on south campus. A virtual campus map is available to help locate parking.
  • September 17, 2021: Supriya Chakrabarti wrote an article for The Conversation titled "How many satellites are orbiting Earth?"
The SPACE HAUC team adding finishing touches to the satellite Image by Edwin L. Aguirre
  • September 17, 2021: Flight readiness for PICTURE-C happened today in preparation for launch day next week.
  • September 15, 2021: PICTURE-C can be seen undergoing tests in a video of NASA CSBF Operations.
  • September 2021: Congratulations to Michele Woodland and Erin Donovan on receiving positions as Student Astronomers under the Schueller Observatory Endowment.
  • September 2021: Congratulations to Thad Potter for receiving the MASGC Fall Fellowship 2021.
  • September 3, 2021: WCVB published an article on SPACE HAUC titled "UMass-designed satellite launched up to International Space Station," including a video of an interview with many of the team members.
  • August 2021: Congratulations to Prof. Tim Cook for receiving a $5000 Infrared Seed Grant from UMass Lowell.
  • August 28,2021: SPACE HAUC, on the SpaceX-23 resupply mission bound for the ISS, is slated for launch on August 28, 2021. Members of the public may watch the launch on the NASA Live website.
  • August 26, 2021: Professor Supriya Chakrabarti, Sunip Mukherjee, and Mit Bailey were at a NASA press conference about SPACE HAUC.
  • August 25,2021: The PICTURE-C team begins their travel to Ft. Sumner, NM over the next few weeks to prepare for PICTURE-C launch.
  • August 12, 2021: Michele Woodland presented her talk "Commotion in their Motion: Giant stars in the Gaia Database" as a NSF-REU summer intern at the Maria Mitchell Association.
  • August 2021: At the observatory the imaging software Maxim DL was installed. An All Sky Camera was installed as well outside the observatory so remote observers can see the sky in Lowell. T-point calibration for SkyX was completed and the filter wheel was connected to SkyX. Imaging of Jupiter, Saturn, and Arcturus was done.
  • August 2021: Assistant Research Professor Christopher Mendillo presented "The PICTURE-C exoplanetary imaging balloon mission: First flight results and second flight preparation" talk along with "Dual-polarization electric field conjugation and applications for vector vortex coronagraphs" at the SPIE Optics and Photonics Conference this August.
  • Mid August, 2021: The observatory telescope was used to image Jupiter, Saturn, and Arcturus.
  • August 2, 2021: Kalpa Henadhira Arachchinge presented "Comparing the Performance of a Solar Wind model from the Sun to 1 au using Real and Synthetic Magnetograms" at the Solar Heliospheric & Interplanetary Environment Symposium (SHINE).
  • July 29, 2021: Mitchell Bailey discussed his research at SoarCS, a zero-credit CS summer course for pre-freshman students. The format was 5 researchers and appx 25 students in "panel format" discussion with Q&A.
  • Mid July, 2021: T-point calibration for Sky-X was successfully completed to ensure the telescope is pointed correctly. In addition, the filter wheel was connected to Sky-X for remote control of the telescope.
  • July 7, 2021: SPACE HAUC was successfully integrated into Nanoracks CubeSat Deployer.
  • July 1, 2021: PICTURE-C, the balloon-borne coronagraph experiment, shipped out today to NASA Wallops facility for testing and integration with the gondola. It is tentatively scheduled for launch in the second half of September. SPACE HAUC, the satellite, was also shipped today to Nanoracks facility at Houston for final integration into the deployer. It is scheduled to be delivered to the ISS in the SpaceX-23 resupply mission for deployment in October.
  • July 2021: An All Sky Camera was installed on the fence next to the observatory to show remote observers what the night sky looks like.
  • June/July 2021: Maxim DL, a program that automates the imaging process, was installed for the CCD camera at the Observatory.
  • June 11, 2021: SPACE HAUC successfully underwent the vibrations test at Boxboro Facility of NTS and the solar panel deployment mechanism was tested afterwards. The satellite will be reassembled and shipped to Houston for deployment at the end of the month.
  • June 2021: Kalpa Henadhira Arachchinge participated in the Heliophysics Summer school program organized by UCAR in partnership with NASA from June 14-25. He presented Simulating the Solar Wind From the Sun to 1AU using Synthetic Magnetogram Data.
  • May 2021: Congratulations to Erin Donovan and Mitchell Bailey for receiving KCOS summer awards!
  • May 21, 2021: A new focuser has been installed at the Schueller Observatory and final calibrations were done.
  • May 5, 2021: Congratulations to Silas Laycock for receiving the 2021 Faculty Honors Committee Award for Outstanding Campus Engagement!
  • April 2021: The Schueller Observatory is in its final stages of calibration. Images of M44 and M13 were taken this past week to assist a lab course.
  • April 2021: Congratulations to Michele Woodland on her summer internship at the Maria Mitchell Observatory in Nantucket, Mass.
  • April 2021: SPACE HAUC assembly begins preparing for flight readiness test. Manifested launch on SpaceX CRS-23 in August.
  • April 2021: Congratulations to graduate student Ankur Roy on his summer fellowship with KCS.
  • April 2021: Assistant Prof. Ofer Cohen was selected to serve on NASA's Exoplanet Exploration Program Analysis Group (ExoPAG) executive committee.
  • April 2021: Ankur Roy presented a poster titled "The geometry of SMC X-2 form Polestar" at the upcoming APS April 2021 online meeting being held from April 17-20.
  • April 2021:
    • Sunip Mukherjee presented a talk at the Student Research Symposium titled "Attitude Control System of SPACE HAUC."
    • Samuel Gregory presented a talk titled "Implementation of flight software around POSIX threading model."
    • Michelina Tumblin presented "UML Schueller Observatory."
    • Nick Sorabella presented"An Extended Source Model of Spikey: The First Supermassive Black Hole Self-Lensing Binary System."
    • Shanice Kelly and Michele Woodland presented"Identification of Internal Defects in Wind Turbine Blades."
  • April 7, 2021: Shanice Kelly's profile was featured in the KCS Student Spotlight.
  • February 26, 2021: Congratulations to Assistant Professor Marianna Maiaru on winning a 2020 Young Investigator Program Award from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research!
  • February 18, 2021: NASA's Perseverance Rover landed on Mars. Live broadcasts can be found through NASA Live as well as Eventbrite on the 18th as well as the days leading up to it.
  • February 10, 2021: An article on Space.com was published titled "Potentially habitable exoplanet candidate spotted around Alpha Centauri in Earth's backyard."
  • February 9, 2021: The UAE's Hope Probe entered into Mars' orbit and live footage can be watched from the UAE Space Agency.
  • February, 2021: Congratulations to Thad Potter on receiving a MASGC fellowship for the spring semester!
  • January 11, 2021:

2020 News and Announcements

Young students are crowded around the LoCCST table at the UMass Lowell Field Trip Day. There are balloons on the table.
  • December 18, 2020: Ofer Cohen commented in an article published by Popular Science, titled "Violent space weather could limit life on nearby exoplanets."
  • December 11, 2020: Silas Laycock interviewed with Jacob Wycoff regarding the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. The interview aired on CBS-Boston Channel 4. 
  • December 3, 2020: Dimitris Christodoulou and Demosthenes Kazanas published a note to Research Notes of the AAS (RNAAS) titled "A Word of Caution About Exoplanet Archival Data" (pdf).
  • December 2, 2020: Professor Supriya Chakrabarti, Ofer Cohen, Silas Laycock, and Timothy Cook gave lightning talks at the Faculty Research Symposium. Professor Cohen's talk was titled "What makes a planet habitable?" Professor Laycock's talk was titled "Schueller Observatory-Astronomy on Campus and Remote." Professor Cook's talk was titled "Calibrating Star Brightness-Boring and Vital."
  • November 25, 2020: Check out the profile that was published on our own Shanice Kelly. 
  • November 13, 2020: Silas Laycock presented remotely the UMass Lowell Center for Space Science and Technology and its mission: to Raising the next generation of space explorers, at ActInSpace2020, which took place in Algeria and was hosted by the University of Blida.
  • October 8, 2020: An article by UML's Katharine Webster was published on Shanice Kelly and Michele Woodland and the work they do at the observatory and on campus, titled "Honors Students Set Sights on the Stars."
  • September 25, 2020: In a Physik Instrumente Podcast titled "Pushing Boundaries - Together. Ep I, w/Prof Christopher Mendillo on his Work Searching for Planets", Mendillo spoke with Dave Rego about his work on the Picture-C balloon experiment - a more economical way to finding new planets without the use of satellites.
  • September 24, 2020: Dimitris Christodoulou, Silas Laycock, Rigel Cappallo, Ankur Roy, Sayantan Bhattacharya, and Demosthenes Kazanas published a paper in Galaxies titled "Variable Magellanic HMXB Sources versus Variable ULX Sources: Nothing to Brag about the ULX Sources."
  • August 11, 2020: Tim Cook and Silas Laycock have participated in interviews regarding the Perseid meteor shower for WBUR and WBZ NewsRadio, respectively. Laycock gave another interview on August 12 with The Boston Globe. The story is on the Globe's website.
  • July 31, 2020: Congratulations to Glenn Howe who successfully passed his Thesis Defense!
  • July 13, 2020: The comet NEOWISE was visible before sunrise until July 14 and about an hour after sunset after July 14. Tips on spotting the comet were given by Sky and Telescope.
  • May 2020: Sanjeev Mehta and Sunip Mukherjee gave a SPACE HAUC presentation at Nashoba Valley Amateur Radio Club (NVARC) monthly meeting entitled "SPACE HAUC."
  • May 2020: Congratulations to Prof. Ofer Cohen for his recent selection by the Physics Dept. as the 2020 Teaching Excellence Award recipient!
  • May 2020: Congratulations to Thaddeus Potter on his award from the MA Space Grant Consortium (MASGC) for summer 2020! Way to go Thad!
  • May 2020: Congratulations to Sean Freeman on his upcoming graduation! Sean has been a big part of the SPACE HAUC team since May 2017 working on Systems Management and Structural Subsystem. Sean will receive his BS in Mechanical Engineering and will continue on toward a MS in ME, also at UMass Lowell in summer/fall 2020.
  • May 5, 2020: Congratulations to Sam Rosa and his faculty advisor, Susanna Finn, on being 1 of 3 undergraduate student winners at the 23rd Annual Student Research & Community Engagement Symposium Award for his presentation Developing and Testing a Bit Scrambler for the UMass Lowell SPACE HAUC Satellite.
  • May 1, 2020: Congratulations to Kuravi Hewawasam who successfully defended his PhD thesis, Development of high-order wavefront control for broadband high contrast imaging. Kuravi hopes to become a post-doctoral research fellow continuing to work at LoCSST upon graduation.
  • May 2020: The grand opening of the Schueller Observatory on South Campus has been postponed until Fall 2020.
  • April 2020: At the Student Research Symposium, Eric O'Donell presented Fabricating Operational Amplifiers for Piezoelectric Steering.
  • April 24, 2020: Congratulations to George Geddes who successfully defended his PhD thesis, Remote Sensing of the Ionosphere and Thermosphere in the Extreme-ultraviolet. George is applying to positions and hopes to continue working in space physics field.
  • April 2020: Sayantan Bhattacharya presented "Accretion - Wind Interaction In IC 10 X-1 : Black Hole+Wolf-Rayet HMXB" at the April American Physical Society (APS) meeting in Washington D.C.
  • February 25, 2020: LoCSST was honored to have provided Chancellor Jacqueline Moloney with an informational tour of our research center today! The Chancellor met with Professors Supriya Chakrabarti, Timothy Cook, Ofer Cohen, Silas Laycock, and Ramaswamy Nagarajan to hear about the center’s mission and activities and heard from students about our NASA SPACE HAUC Cubesat project. She concluded her visit with a tour of the lab housing our NASA PICTURE-C Balloon.
  • February 2020: Congratulations to Thaddeus Potter for passing his MS Defense today. He presented “Fabrication and Characterization of Optical Photodetectors using Organic Thermoelectrics”. Thad is working with the PICTURE-C team as he pursues his Ph.D.
  • February 2, 2020: A new story on PICTURE-C was published on Space.com titled "Balloon-lofted camera built to hunt alien worlds aces first flight."
The dome has been added to the observatory. The observatory currently sits in a field of snow. The Merrimack River is visible in the background. Image by Thomas Weber

2019 News and Announcements

A gathering at the Japanese consul's residence. The woman in the blue is Japan's first female astronaut. The man next to her is the Consul General.

A gathering at the Japanese consul's residence.

Previous Events/News

  • November 15, 2019: Professor Supriya Chakrabarti gave a talk at the "Forum of U.S.-Japan Alliance in a new space age: Back to the Moon." Professor Ofer Cohen and several graduate and undergraduate students attended.
  • November 14, 2019: Professor Silas Laycock published an article for The Conversation's "Curious Kids" series, titled "Curious Kids: Why do people look into space with telescopes but not binoculars?"
Janalvin Arbiol (left) and Alexander Barr (right) are standing in front of their table and poster.

Janalvin Arbiol (left) and Alexander Barr (right)

  • November, 2019: Janalvin Arbiol and Alexander Barr from Mechanical Engineering present SPACE HAUC at NSBE's 9th Annual Soiree Elegance Event held at UMass Lowell.
Sanjeev Mehta, Sean Freeman, and Sunip Mukherjee present their poster during the NEROC Fourth Annual Radio Science Symposium held at the MIT Haystack Observatory.
  • November, 2019: SPACE HAUC team members Sean Freeman, Sunip Mukherjee, and George Geddes discuss their poster presentation during the NEROC Fourth Annual Radio Science Symposium held at the MIT Haystack Observatory.
  • November 4-8, 2019: Supriya Chakrabarti presented SPACE HAUC: An undergraduate CubeSat mission to demonstrate high bandwidth communication using an X-Band phased-array system at the 4th COSPAR Symposium on Small Satellites for Sustainable Science & Development in Herzliya, Israel.
Dr. Chakrabarti and Faculty of the University of Minho
  • October 31, 2019: Congratulations to Christopher Emma who successfully defended his MS Thesis "Investigation of Static Parameters for Space Weather Models".
  • October 14, 2019: Prof. Supriya Chakrabarti served as a keynote speaker for "Aerospace Engineering: Future Challenger for Teaching and Research" at the Engineering School of University of Minho - Azurem Campus, Portugal.
Supriya Chakrabarti, Kuravi Hewawasam, CHristopher Mendillo, Glenn Howe prepares for the launch of PICTURE C.
  • October 2019: With the success of PICTURE-C, a $5.6 million dollar planet hunting telescope, multiple news stations have explored the success of the project.
  • October 4, 2019: The Lowell Sun published an article "UMass Lowell launches space telescope with NASA"
  • October 3, 2019: The Boston Globe published an article "NASA launches telescope built by UMass Lowell"
  • October 2, 2019: The Daily News published an article describing the PICTURE-C mission "NASA launches a new Earth-like planet hunting telescope using a giant balloon"
  • October 1, 2019: PICTURE-C receives recognition for its successful mission from EurekAlert in their news article "Telescope seeking new planets launches via football field-sized balloon"
JFK Space Summit LoCSST Booth
  • September 28, 2019: PICTURE-C launched from Ft. Sumner, NM at 9:07 a.m. The mission flew all day and all night and terminated around 5 a.m. on September 29. It landed at around 5:45 a.m. in western N.M., about 220 miles from the launch site.
  • September 11, 2019: Edwin L. Aguirre published "A New Astronomical Observatory Rises on South Campus", an article presenting the new observatory at UMass Lowell set to be completed by the end of January 2020.
  • September, 2019: Congratulations to Prof. Silas Laycock and team who have been awarded observing time on the 3.5-meter WIYN telescope at Kitt Peak, AZ. This is in response to their proposal to observe X-ray binary candidates in the field containing the dwarf galaxy IC 10. The telescope will be equipped with the Hydra multi-fiber spectrograph. The observing run will be the nights 5-6 September; graduate student Ankur Roy and consultant Rigel Cappallo will support this.
  • August 15, 2019: Prof. Supriya Chakrabarti met with Minoru Ikusaki from the Consulate General of Japan in Boston to discuss plans for the upcoming U.S.-Japan Alliance in a New Age of Space Exploration / Space 2.0 Conference in November where Supriya will give a talk.
  • August 11-15, SPIE 2019:
  • August 5, 2019: Undergraduate Matthew Barr was elected to Treasurer of SEDS USA.
Dr. Supriya Chakrabarti and the students and faculty of Narula Institute of Technology
  • August 1, 2019: Supriya Chakrabarti gave a lecture on "The New Space: Trends in exploration with small satellites" at the invitation of The Institute of Engineers (India) in Kolkata, India, at the Narula Institute of technology.
  • July 17, 2019: Remembering the moon landing. Many faculty remember and share their experience.
  • July 2-4, 2019: The 8 meter telescope of the Gemini North observatory atop Mauna Kea, HI, obtained deep optical spectra for a slew of candidate extragalactic high-mass x-ray binaries. The observations are part of Prof. Silas Laycock's research into the birth and feeding of stellar black holes.
  • July, 2019: Ofer Cohen gave a talk at the Erwin Schroidinger Institute, Vienna.
  • June 19, 2019: LoCSST presented sample experimental work of our students at the JFK Space Summit at the JFK Memorial Library in honor of the 50th anniversary of the moon landing.
  • June 16: Supriya Chakrabarti was invited to The Institution of Engineers (India) in Kolkata, India to give a lecture on "The New Space: Trends in exploration with small satellites.
  • May 2019: Prof. Cohen visited congress member’s offices at Capitol Hill in DC as part of the AAS Solar Physics Division’s Public Policy Committee.
  • May 2019: Ofer Cohen gave a talk on High Altitude Observatory Colloquium.
  • May, 2019: Edwin L. Aguirre published All Systems Go! in the magazine "Elements of Science "which discusses LoCSST's research projects before, now, and going forward.
  • May 24, 2019: Congratulations to Master's Student Sayantan Bhattacharya for publishing his paper "Diffusion Coefficients and Constraints on Hadronic Inhomogeneities in the Early Universe" in the European Physics Journal.
  • May 20-21, 2019: Researchers from LoCSST presented at the International Space Weather Initiative workshop in Trieste, Italy
  • May 21, 2019: Susanna Finn presented "UV Observations of the Ionosphere from the ISS”
  • May 20, 2019: Supriya Chakrabarti presented "CoMIC: A customizable multicolor camera for solar-terrestrial interaction studies”
  • May 11, 2019: Space.com featured the article by Supriya Chakrabarti “Beanie babies the invention of cubesat and student designed and built satellites."
  • May 9, 2019: Susanna Finn was invited to Boston College Institute for Scientific Research to give a seminar "Observations of the Equatorial Arcs from LITES on the ISS”
  • May 8, 2019: Sarah Underwood, Honors College Student, presented “Building a reusable high altitude balloon”
  • May 6, 2019: Supriya Chakrabarti published his article "Beanie Babies, the Invention of CubeSat and Student-Designed and Built Satellites".
  • May 3, 2019: SPACE HAUC Communication Team Members Abdelali Mazouz, Alexandra Akinyemi, Hicham Ouadoudi, Jonathan Wamala, and Marci Foley presented their work at the Francis College of Engineering Senior Design Industrial Capstone Showcase.
  • May 1, 2019: Congratulations to Qusai Al Shidi for successfully defending his PhD dissertation. Qusai is heading to the University of Michigan to start a new position as a postdoc fellow. He will be with us until the end of May.
Graduate student Sunip Mukherjee presents a poster for his research "CoMIC A Compact Multicolor Imaging Camera" Image by Supriya Chakrabarti
  • May, 2019: Congratulations to graduate students George Geddes and Glenn Howe on receiving fellowships from the Massachusetts Space Grants Consortium for the research work this summer.
  • April 12 2019: Andrew Burns presented Attitude Control System testing for the SPACE HAUC satellite at AE Research Conference.

April 5, 2019: Moonshot event at UMass Lowell, celebrated the legacy of John F. Kennedy and the Apollo program. Below is a list of the exciting booths that attended the event!

  • Center for Space Science and Technology: High Altitude Science with Balloons
    Getting telescopes and cameras into orbit is expensive, but a balloon can get above most of the atmosphere, which can be enough to see into the ultraviolet or the infrared. Our scientists study exoplanets, the ionosphere, and even distant galaxies using NASA balloons. On a smaller scale, our students are working to create a reusable weather balloon system that can take a camera to 100,000 feet, track it, return by parachute, and recover the payload. At our station you will launch a miniature video camera to the roof of the building, and then view video footage of the flight! You will also test the technology used to track and recover balloon payloads.
  • Center for Space Science and Technology: Solar Observing
    Astronomy always seems to happen at night. But our nearest star is visible every sunny day! We are using our solar observing station to look for Sunspots, Solar Prominences, and learn about the surprisingly active surface of the Sun.
  • Honors Physics I Students: Video Trajectory Analysis
    Video analysis has revolutionized physics and engineering, making what were once complex measurements cheap and available to anyone. In our lab-course we use tracker software and cell-phone video to extract velocity vectors for all types of motion, and then compute the forces, to reveal the underlying physics. Similar methods are used to track rockets, spacecraft, near-earth asteroids, even stars orbiting black holes! At our station, we launched projectiles, videoed them and then analyzed their trajectories.
  • Department of Physics: Schlieren Photography
    As seen in a mirage, or above a hot road, small changes in temperature and pressure can produce visible distortions in images. By using a sharp object to “cut off” part of the image, and greatly increase the contrast, Schlieren Photography is capable of imaging even small fluctuations in temperature and density. This technique can be used to see pressure waves from a supersonic jet, or the heat from a cup of coffee!
  • Graduate Physics Association: Solar and Atomic Spectra
    There are many sources of light in the night sky, but depending on where the light came from, the intensity of the light at different wavelengths will be very different. Some sources produce sharp line spectra, with high intensity at only a few wavelengths. Others produce much broader spectra, where a large portion of the electromagnetic spectrum is emitted. We will be looking at several different sources, and what kind of light they produce.
  • Department of Environmental, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Earth Analogs to Lunar Rock Types
    When the moon first formed, it was covered in an ocean of magma hundreds of kilometers deep. As the magma cooled and crystallized, less dense minerals rose to the top and floated, forming the original crust of the moon, represented by the light-colored lunar highlands. The dark areas on the moon formed several hundred million years later when basins formed by impacting asteroids were filled with lava from erupting volcanoes. Ultimately, these processes left the moon with two basic rock types. We will see examples from Earth of these same rocks here, both as hand specimens and thin slivers for viewing with a microscope
  • NERVE
    NERVE (New England Robotics Validation Experimentation Center) showed how robot grippers work and also demonstrated a virtual reality experience using the Valkyrie humanoid robot simulator.
  • Department of Chemistry: The pH of Martian Soil
    During the Phoenix mission to Mars in 2007, the soluble ions present in the soil were detected and quantified for the first time. This was also the first time that the pH was determined. Soil was loaded into a chamber on the lander and water (from Earth) was added. Through the use of ion selective electrodes, pH electrodes, and conductivity measurements, the different components that were able to dissolve in the water, were able to be determined. We will be looking at and measuring the pH of solutions of these individual components as well as the overall resulting Martian Soil solution.

View Photos of the Moonshot event.

  • February 11, 2019: Qusai Al Shidi presented a talk entitled “Time-Dependent Collisional MHD Model of the Chromosphere” at the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
  • February 7, 2019: Boston University Center for Space Physics Seminar Series – Prof. Ofer Cohen presented a talk entitled “Heliophysics of Exoplanets and Star‐planet Interaction.”
LoCSST representative demonstrating equipment for students
  • January 23, 2019: LoCSST students Sarah Underwood, Tim Barrett, and Rigel Cappallo, along with Profs. Silas Laycock and Ofer Cohen provided a Space Science Center booth at UMass Lowell Athletics’ Fifth Annual Health & Fitness Field Trip Day at the Tsongas Center. It was a high energy morning with over 3,000 third to sixth grade students from surrounding towns roaming the “Kids’ Concourse” before the River Hawks women’s basketball game. The kids enjoyed seeing their reflections in the giant telescope mirror at the booth. This brought them in to pepper the staff with questions about space, and to learn about how and why someone would become an astronaut. The ever popular "Fabric of Space Time" got stretched near breaking point as groups of kids explored how gravity causes planets to orbit the Sun, and why the moon stays with the Earth and doesn’t fall into the Sun. The activity serves as an ice breaker for discussion about Albert Einstein’s contributions and the significance of Emmy Noether, and how we may recognize one but not the other! Thanks to Emily Quigley at UMass Lowell Athletics for inviting LoCSST to participate and meet so many enthusiastic young people.
  • January 16, 2019: Congratulations to Saurav Aryal who successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled “Remote sensing of the upper atmosphere using ground-based imaging spectroscopy.”
  • January 6-10, 2019: AAS Meeting - Seattle, Wash. - Timothy Cook presented two posters: “A balloon payload for infrared stellar astronomy” and “Time-Domain Astronomy with SOFIA: Results from Current Observations with FORCAST and Prospects with the Proposed New Instrument S3”
  • January 4, 2019: Silas Laycock and students used the 8-meter Gemini-North telescope (Mauna Team Hawaii) to observe the Cassiopeia starburst galaxy. Spectra for approximately 20 stars were obtained using the Gemini Multi Object spectrograph (GMOS).& These stars are suspected to be high mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs); each was selected based on images from the Chandra X-ray observatory. An HMXB is a massive star, perhaps 10X the mass of the Sun (or more) with a black hole or neutron star companion orbiting it.

2018 News and Announcements

  • Dec. 19, 2018: Professor Supriya Chakrabarti's lecture to students at the Rajabazar Science College was featured on Kolkata Wire.
  • Dec. 10-14, 2018: AGU Fall Meeting - Washington D.C.
  • Nov. 19, 2018: The New England Space Science Consortium meeting on the outer heliosphere and the interstellar interaction was held at UMass Lowell
  • Nov. 16, 2018: NEROC Symposium - Westford, Mass. - Supriya Chakrabarti presented the talk, "Highlights of current space research at Lowell center for Space Science and Technology (LoCSST)"
  • Nov. 2, 2018: Colloquium at the Institute of Radio Physics and Electronics - University of Calcutta, Kolkata - Supriya Chakrabarti presented the talk, "Small satellites for science and technology experiments at the university of Massachusetts, Lowell"
  • Sept. 24, 2018: World Space Observatory, Facultad de Estudios Estadísticos, Madrid - Supriya Chakrabarti presented the talk, "Space-based direct imaging of exoplanetary environment"
  • Sept. 20, 2018: Instituto de Optica-CSIC, Madrid - Supriya Chakrabarti presented a talk, "High contrast and Hyperspectral imagery from ground and space at LoCSST"
  • Aug. 8-10, 2018: Chandra Science Workshop on Accretion in Stellar Systems - Cambridge, Mass.
    • Prof. Laycock presented the talk, “Massive X-ray Binaries in Starburst Galaxies. What do they look like and how massive are they really?”
    • Ph.D. student, Rigel Cappallo presented the talk, “Exploring Pulsars with Polestar”
    • Ruchit Panchal presented his recent project on modeling the shape of eclipses in black hole X-ray binaries.
  • June 28, 2018: LOCSST had its fourth successful visit by students from the Portland high-school. The students visited the LOCSST labs and learned about Space Weather and black holes from professors Cohen and Laycock.
  • June 24, 2018: Project Blue Science Team Meeting, Austin, Texas - Supriya Chakrabarti presented a talk, “Suborbital Coronagraphic Imaging Program: The PICTURE series of experiments”
  • June 14, 2018: Center for Space Physics, Boston University, Boston - Supriya Chakrabarti presented the talk, “Highlights of Space Research at UMass Lowell”
  • June 6, 2018: LOCSST hosted the Boston Area Exoplanet Science Meeting with attendees from all the Northeast Us region.
  • June 3-7, 2018: American Astronomical Society Meeting - Denver Colorado - Rigel Cappallo presented his work with Profs. Dr. Laycock and Dr. Christodoulou on computer modeling X-ray pulsars
  • May 16, 2018: Two Immersive Scholars will be working with SPACE HAUC this summer: Kyle Hamblett and Robert Pierzynski. Congratulations to our former student project manager, Samuel Ashton, on recently graduating! The new student project manager is Simthyrearch Dy, a Physics student.
  • May 2, 2018: Prof. Laycock published an article about NASA’s RXTE mission in The Conversation.
  • April 25, 2018: Glenn Howe and George Geddes have been awarded Summer 2018 MASGC fellowships for their research work.
  • March 28, 2018: Prof. Cohen was quoted in a Scientific American news article.
  • Jan. 8-12, 2018: AAS Meeting, Washington D.C., The talk "PICTURE-C: A NASA Balloon Mission to Directly Image Exozodiacal Dust Around Nearby Stars" by C. Mendillo, K. Hewawasam, G. A. Howe, J. Martel, S. Finn, T. Cook, and S. Chakrabarti was presented.

2017 News & Announcements


DECEMBER 2017

AGU MEETING - December 11-15, New Orleans, La.
  • Supriya Chakrabarti will present the talk "Remote Sensing of the Upper Atmosphere and the Ionosphere in the Extreme and Far Ultraviolet: Results from the LITES Experiment aboard the ISS".
  • George Geddes will present the poster "Validation of O+ Profiles Inverted from LITES EUV Spectral Images" 

Exoplanet Science Meeting - December 4, MIT Cambridge, Mass.

November 2017

Supriya Chakrabarti presented the opening talk "An Introduction to Lowell Center for Space Science and Technology" and two graduate students presented posters at the Northeast Radio Observatory Corporation (NEROC) Symposium Series-Second Annual Radio Science Symposium on November 8 at MIT Haystack Observatory in Westford, Mass.

Supriya Charkabarti will attend the 9th European CubeSat Symposium from November 29-December 1, 2017 in Kursaal, Ostend, Belgium

OCTOBER 2017

  • Supriya Chakrabarti named new director of undergraduate research opportunities and collaboration on October 10.
  • Tim Cook presented the talk LITES: Ultraviolet Aeronomy from the Space Station at ISR, Boston College on October 3.
  • Nobel Prize in Physics !Congratulations to our colleague Rainer Weiss, MIT Physicist on receiving the 2017 award.

ECLIPSE News

LionoANDMatt Image by Katharine Webster

Undergraduate student co-op scholars Matthew Linnehan and Liono Kou are pictured here with an early SPACE HAUC CubeSat model. The plan is for the satellite to be tested and completed by the end of 2017, with anticipated launch in 2018.

August 2017

Supriya Chakrabarti  presented the talk "The Limb Imaging Ionospheric and Thermospheric EUV Spectograph (LITEs): Early Results" at the 2017 Joint IAPSO-IAMAS-IAGA Assembly in Cape Town, South Africa in late August.

NASA Press Release: Here we share the press release of the Nature paper co-authored by Ofer Cohen - August 2, 2017

Chandra News

NASA Press Release "IC 10: A Starburst Galaxy with the Prospect of Gravitational Waves" - August 10, 2017

PICTURE C News

Glenn Howe presented the poster "The low-order wavefront control system for the PICTURE-C mission: Preliminary testbed results from the Shack-Hartmann sensor" and Kuravi Hewawasam presented the poster "The low-order wavefront control system for the PICTURE-C mission: High-speed image acquisition and processing"at SPIE while Chris Mendillo gave a talk.

SPAC HAUC Update

JULY 2017

June 2017

Two of our graduate student researchers presented posters at CEDAR 2017 Workshop - June 18-23, 2017 - Keystone, Colo.

  • Auroral energy and energy flux derivation using multi-spectral imaging, S. Aryal
  • Preliminary Results from LITES and Model Comparison, G. Geddes

MAY 2017

Several members of LoCSST participated in "Conversation Starter on Space Research" which was held May 10 and was hosted by Kennedy College of Sciences.  The inaugural event focused on space research and featured presentations from a panel, which were followed by information discussions in small groups.

NewScientist:Neutron stars that slow down could be eating ‘backwards’ gas - May 2, 2017 - Silas Laycock, Dimitris Christodoulou, and Jun Yang "In the News!"

APRIL 2017

Our SPAC HAUC student team presented at i2i - a day-long celebration of innovation and achievement on April 28. 

Spring 2017 Symposium  - Space Exploration in the Upcoming Decade: The Domestication of Space: April 21-22

Leading visionaries, space scientists, astronauts and entrepreneurs from around the globe came together for a symposium that celebrated the 60-year anniversary of the launch of Sputnik 1 and the beginning of the space age. Learn more.

Advisory Board Meeting Presentation - Our SPAC HAUC student team presented their research at the April 20 Advisory Board meeting.

Forbes:Exo-Earths With Global Magnetic Fields Most Likely To Have Life - April 10

March 2017

Spring break student/faculty activities

Faculty, Students bring Astronomy Roadshow to Haiti Schoolchildren  - March 24, 2017

Astronomy Roadshow in Haiti blog

Proxima Centauri News -Alien Planet Likely Can’t Support Life, Say Researchers - March 1, 2017

Congratulations to those recognized at the Faculty Symposium held March 2, 2017 at the UMass Lowell Inn and Conference Center!

  • Supriya Chakrabarti - Co-Op and Emerging Scholars' Mentor, FY16 Total Expenditures by PI
  • Timothy Cook - 2016 Faculty Award for Teaching Excellence, FY16 Total Expenditures by PI
  • Silas Laycock - Membership in Transformational Education Committee 2015-2016. Research Accomplishments and Publications
  • Christopher Hansen - FY16 Total Expenditures by PI, Inventive Contributions Faculty who contributed the most invention disclosures, patents, etc.) and Core Research Facilities contributions/promoting service
Supriya

Supriya stands with Dr. Ajoy Ray, Director outside the workshop venue.

January 2017 - Supriya Chakrabarti Visits India

Supriya was invited to and delivered the keynote address at the conference “Recent Advances in Space Technology” which was organized by the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Applied Mechanics at the Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology (IIEST), Shibpur on January, 16, 2017 at 3 p.m. Later that day, Supriya inaugurated the ‘Astrophel’, the Students Society for Space Club, and addressed the students on several topics related to Astrophysics and Space Technology.

LITES (Limb-imaging Ionospheric and Thermospheric Extreme-ultraviolet Spectrograph) is a compact imaging spectrograph for remote sensing of the upper atmosphere and ionosphere. LITES was built at UMass Lowell and will launch to the International Space Station from Kennedy Space Center on February 18, 2017.

LITES has launched!

LITES (Limb-imaging Ionospheric and Thermospheric Extreme-ultraviolet Spectrograph) is a compact imaging spectrograph for remote sensing of the upper atmosphere and ionosphere. LITES was built at UMass Lowell and launched to the International Space Station from Kennedy Space Center on February 19, 2017 9:38 a.m. EST.

Supriya Chakrabarti and Susanna Finn were present in Florida for the launch!  Susanna is the force behind LITES for UMass Lowell, LoCSST. Other team members include Prof. Timothy Cook and Jason Martel – our engineer. LITES will be collecting images of the ionosphere for 1-2 years and Physics graduate students Saurav Aryal and George Geddes will be analyzing the data. More details can be found on the Space Flight Now website.

Media coverage

2016 News & Announcements

Physics Today: The space weather on the closest Earth-like exoplanet - December 12, 2016

A numerical study suggests that the exoplanet’s atmosphere is unlikely to have survived the intense wind from its parent star.

For more information, please refer to The Space Weather of Proxima Centauri b, by Garraffo1, J. J. Drake1, and O. Cohen.

International meeting participation

  • International discussion of space in "Kamchia" article - November 9, 2016. The search for exoplanets is one of the latest projects of the University of Massachusetts in the US, which was presented by Prof. Supriya Chakrabarti. According to him, the aim of the scientists is the star Alpha Centauri around which suggests that there is a planet similar to ours.

Invited Space Physics Seminar - September 29, 2016

Prof. Tim Cook presented "What's up with 834" at Boston University.

Prof. Laycock and students travel to Haiti - Summer 2016

Tom Heywosz, Andrew Cozzens and Silas Laycock recently visited Haiti, where they spent a week teaching science at a school in the city of Les Cayes. The annual visit is part of their Astronomy Roadshow, which is available to visit schools in the Massachusetts/NH area during the school year. Read more in their Astronomy Roadshow blog.

Russell_congratulations Image by Jim Higgins

SPAC HAUC PRESS

The SPAC HAUC logo design has been chosen! - congratulations to Russell Byron-Kelly!

Red and blue logo for the SACE HAUC program

Board of Trustees Dinner - SPAC HAUC Presentation - September 2016

On Tuesday, September 20, Prof. Supriya Chakrabarti and Dat Le, SPACE HAUC Student Project Manager, attended the Board of Trustees Dinner at University Crossing. Participants were interested to learn about the satellite itself as well as the educational benefits that the project is providing to our undergraduate students.

Prof. Supriya Chakrabarti received SPIE Award - July 2016.

Prof. Silas Laycock co-author on paper featured on AAS Nova! AAS Nova (aasnova.org) is designed to highlight some of the most interesting recent results being published in AAS journals, with the dual intent of a) gaining broader exposure for our authors, and b) providing astronomy researchers and enthusiasts with summaries of recent research across a wide range of astronomical fields. The article A Pulsar and a Disk can be read online.

Congratulations Graduates! - Spring / Summer 2016

Congratulations to Ewan Douglas, BU graduate student of Prof. Chakrabarti, who successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis "Advancing Spaceborne Tools for the Characterization of Circumstellar Environments" on July 12, 2016 to earn his Ph.D. in Astronomy. Also, congratulations to Prof. Cook's graduate student from BU, Meredith Danowski, who successfully defended her thesis "Enigmatic Extinction: An investigation of the 2175 Å extinction bump in M101, the Pinwheel Galaxy" on May 2 and earned her Ph.D. in Astrophysics. Meredith is working for Northwestern University on the Micro-X project, which is currently stationed at GSFC, but moving to Evanston, IL soon where she will conduct further testing and subsystems integration for the Micro-X payload to prepare for launch. All our best wishes for much success Ewan and Meredith. Also, congratulations to Samuel Fingerman who received his Master's Degree in Physics in May 2016! Sam will be working on his research this summer under Supriya Chakrabarti's supervision on the MISTIC WINDS program.

International Meeting Participation - May 2016

Graduate student Jun Yang and Prof. Silas Laycock attended XMM-Newton: The Next Decade which was held at European Space Astronomy Center, Madrid, Spain. Jun presented a talk "X-ray Sources in the Magellanic Clouds: Analysis of 15 Years of XMM-Newton and Chandra Observations."

April 19, 2016 - Our SPACE HAUC Student Team lead by Dat Le, presented "Science Program Around The Communications Engineering with High Achieving Undergraduate Cadres” at the Student Research Symposium

April 9, 2016 - Four of our Cubesat undergraduate researchers: Dat Le, Will Kammerer, Chuck Barbon and Jake Hulme attended the MIT Sloan New Space Age Conference in Cambridge, Mass.

2016 MA Space Grant Recipients - Congratulations Students

  • Spring 2016: Dat Le, Glenn Howe, Samuel Fingerman, and Ryan Maguire
  • Summer 2016 George Geddes and Glenn Howe

Observing Time Award - Congratulations

Jun Yang has won observing time at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Southern Arizona.  Her proposal was awarded 2 nights in October for spectroscopy with the Hydra multi-fiber spectrograph on the WIYN 3.5 meter telescope, and two half-nights in December for imaging with the Mayall 4-m telescope. Jun and Laycock are studying a nearby starburst galaxy, located a mere 2 million light-years away, in the constellation Cassiopeia. This little galaxy (only about 1/100 the size of our home-galaxy the Milky Way) is in the act of forming many new stars, making it an ideal laboratory to study a hard-to-catch phase of stellar evolution. The most massive stars (>10X more massive than the Sun) only shine for a short time before going supernova and (perhaps) collapsing into a black-hole. Jun’s mission is to find and count those newly-minted black holes in order to understand what controls their formation.

CONGRATULATIONS

March 7, 2016 - Supriya Chakrabarti has been named the 2016 recipient of the SPIE George W. Goddard Award! The George W. Goddard Award is presented annually in recognition of exceptional achievement in optical or photonic instrumentation for aerospace, atmospheric science, or astronomy.

The award is for the invention and development of a new technique, photonic instrumentation, instrument or system. The SPIE Awards Committee has made this recommendation in recognition of your efforts as an innovative scientist, a visionary physicist, a scholar of extraordinary insight, and as an extraordinary role model. Chakrabarti will receive his award at an upcoming SPIE meeting where he will present results from his NASA PICTURE-B launch.

March 7, 2016 - UMass Lowell students Will Chambers (honors college), and Patrick Ryan (Physics) presented their Astronomy Research project setting up and using the new Schueller Observatory, at the UMass advocacy reception held at the Massachusetts State House recently.

Check out these interesting links that relate to Prof. Laycock's outreach activities!

March 7, 2016 - UMass Lowell students Will Chambers (honors college), and Patrick Ryan (Physics) presented their Astronomy Research project setting up and using the new Schueller Observatory, at the UMass advocacy reception held at the Massachusetts State House recently.

Check out these interesting links that relate to Prof. Laycock's outreach activities!

February 9, 2016 - Congratulations to Jun Yang who received the American Astronomical Society international travel award.

Poster presentation: Derivation of Auroral Energy and Energy Flux using Simultaneous Multispectral Imaging, Saurav Aryal, Kuravi Hewawasam, Ryan Maguire, Susanna C. Finn, Timothy Cook, Jason Martel, Jeffrey L. Baumgardner and Supriya Chakrabart.

Saurav Aryal presents his poster at the Fall AGU meeting.

Fall AGU Meeting participation

Three posters were presented at the December meeting in SFO:

  • Derivation of Auroral Energy and Energy Flux using Simultaneous Multispectral Imaging, Saurav Aryal, Kuravi Hewawasam, Ryan Maguire, Susanna C. Finn, Timothy Cook, Jason Martel, Jeffrey L. Baumgardner and Supriya Chakrabart
Poster presentation: Retrieval of O+ Density From Combined OII 83.4 nm and OII 61.7 nm Limb Emissions, George Geddes, Susanna C. Finn, Andrew Stephan, Tim Cook, Supriya Chakrabarti

George Geddes presents his poster at the Fall AGU meeting.

  • Retrieval of O+ Density From Combined OII 83.4 nm and OII 61.7 nm Limb Emissions, George Geddes, Susanna C. Finn, Andrew Stephan, Tim Cook, Supriya Chakrabarti
  • Coordinated Ground- and Space-based Multispectral Campaign to Study Equatorial Spread-F Formation, Susanna C. Finn, George Geddes, Saurav Aryal, Andrew W. Stephan, Scott Budzien, Duggirala Pallamraju, Cesar Valladares, Supriya Chakrabarti

7th Nano-Satellite Symposium - Bulgaria - October 2016

Prof. Supriya Chakrabarti co-chaired a session and presented a talk during the October 18-19 satcom technologies event.

2015 News & Announcements

Congratulations!

November 13, 2015 - Graduate Students Glenn Howe and George Geddes have both received MA Space Grant Fellowships!

News

We are pleased to announce that Silas Laycock, Ph.D., received a promotion in August 2015 from Lecturer to Assistant Professor in Physics. Way to go Silas! Silas is Principal Investigator of a "big data" study of X-ray pulsars which involves assembling many thousands of satellite observations, detecting all the pulsars, and building a library of computer models He also leads a multi-wavelength observing project to discover and study X-ray binaries in our nearest starburst galaxy. The aim is to unlock the role of age and environment in the production of black holes and neutron stars. Silas is an enthusiastic proponent of time domain astronomy and adaptive optics. 

Susanna Finn, Ph.D., presented "Limb-imaging Ionospheric and Thermospheric Extreme-ultraviolet Spectrograph (LITES) on the ISS", S. Finn, S. Chakrabarti, T. Cook, A. Stephan, and S. Budzien at the ISS R&D Conference in Boston, MA on July 7. Please see the online version of Boston Magazine (was also in Best of Boston July print issue) to read more.

Professor David Willis talks to NESN about the science behind the Wells report- the "Deflategate" investigation into allegations that the New England Patriots deflated footballs.