NASA Official to Visit Lowell Students, Community in City Tour

04/02/2014

Contacts for media: UMass Lowell - Nancy Cicco, 978-934-4944 or Nancy_Cicco@uml.edu 

Middlesex Community College - Colleen Cox, 978-835-5919, coxc@middlesex.mass.edu

Lowell High School - Brian Martin, 978-937-8900, bmartin@lowell.k12.ma.us

James F. Sullivan Middle School - Jackie Paton, 978-937-8993, jpaton@lowell.k12.ma.us

S. Christa McAuliffe Elementary School - Nan Murphy, 978-937-2836, nanmurphy@lowell.k12.ma.us

* Media Advisory *

Thursday, April 3 and Friday, April 4

What:  Astronaut Christopher Cassidy – who has completed NASA missions at the International Space Station and is an elite Navy SEAL commander – will visit UMass Lowell as part of a two-day tour of the city sponsored by the university. During his stay, he will also meet with students at Lowell public schools and Middlesex Community College to share his knowledge of space, science and service to his country.

Cassidy – who calls York, Maine home – was the first U.S. astronaut to complete a flight to the space station in less than six hours. During a five-month mission there last year, he performed an emergency spacewalk to determine the cause of a potentially dangerous problem and worked on hundreds of research experiments to benefit future space missions and life on Earth. He was among the crew members who assisted with the arrival of spacecraft from European, Japanese and Russian aeronautics agencies that delivered cargo and supplies. 

Cassidy’s first expedition to the space station in 2009 called on him to help complete its assembly. The mission included a record number of crew members from the U.S., Canada, Europe, Japan and Russia. Cassidy, who has completed six spacewalks, also has significant experience on the ground, having worked as a capsule commander in Mission Control.

Before joining NASA in 2004, he served for 10 years as a Navy SEAL, taking part in critical special-tactics missions under the sea, on the land and in the air. Deployed four times – twice to Afghanistan and twice to the Mediterranean – his honors include two Bronze Stars and a NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal.

Cassidy’s tour is not open to the general public but media are invited to cover it. At UMass Lowell, he will meet with students in UMass Lowell’s ROTC unit and others who won a national NASA competition last year that challenged them to design and build a Mars rover-style robot – nicknamed the “Rover Hawk” – and operate it remotely on terrain that mimicked another planet’s surface. The demonstration will take place on Friday, April 4 from 10:15 to 11:15 a.m. at the New England Robotics Validation and Experimentation (NERVE) Center at UMass Lowell, 1001 Pawtucket Blvd., Lowell.

Cassidy will also make presentations at the following stops:

Thursday, April 3:

Friday, April 4:

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