Welcome to the Low-Gravity Science and Technology (LGST) Laboratory! Our group is part of Georgia Tech’s SSDL and engages in a broad range of activities in the fields of microgravity and low-gravity research. From low-gravity fluid physics to lunar dust mitigation, the LGST Lab focuses on developing the next-generation space systems while understanding the fundamental physical mechanisms behind them. Areas of interest include human spaceflight, life support, propellant management, heat transfer, dust dynamics, in-situ resource utilization, plant biology, and many others.
News & Events
- August 20th, 2025: NASA Space Tech publishes today a cool video on our NIAC work together with Theo St. Francis and our partners at Giner Inc. More here!
- August 18th, 2025: Nature Chemistry publishes today our latest journal article on magnetohydrodynamic water electrolysis in microgravity. Check our press release and more informal blog for more info!
- August 18th, 2025: This semester, we welcome Justin Wheeler, Jack Herman, Michael Peña, Walker Brown, and Alfonso Lagares de Toledo to the LGST Lab! They will start their PhD and MS programs.
- August 17th, 2025: Congrats to Shay Vitale, Eri Yoshinaga, and Matthias Kura on concluding their academic and research programs at the LGST Lab! It was an absolute pleasure to host them, and we wish them good luck.
- August 12th, 2025: Hugh Chen presented today his paper “Microgravity Testing of a Thermal Start Basket for Propellant Repositioning” at the 39th Annual Small Satellite Conference in Salt Lake City, UT! This is part of our NASA TechFlights effort on CubeSat propellant repositioning.
- July 14/15th, 2025: The LGST Lab presented three papers and three posters at the 54th International Conference on Environmental Systems (ICES) in Prague, CZ! Theo St. Francis, Matthias Kura, and Roelof Pol discussed our work on life support (oxygen production and CO2 removal) and algae photobioreactors in collaboration with ZARM and TUM.
- July 2nd, 2025: We are excited to partner with Prof. Kevin Crosby on the development of the Microgravity Ullage Trapping (MUT) technology as part of the NASA TechLeap Space Technology Payload Challenge!
- May 27th, 2025: Our NIAC proposal “Breathing Beyond Earth: A Reliable Oxygen Production Architecture for Human Space Exploration” was just accepted for Phase II funding! Our team looks forward to collaborating with Giner Labs and the ZARM Institute in Bremen on this new project.
- May 8th, 2025: Our lab just completed our second parabolic flight as part of our NASA-funded research on CubeSat propellant positioning! Together with our main propellant positioning payloads, we flew several educational experiments from our Spacecraft Engineering II course.
- May 7th, 2025: Congratulations to Hugh Chen for landing the Best Technical Report Award as part of the Entrepreneurship Assistants Program. He worked with Trenton Gantt, Scheller College of Business, to assess the market value of our CubeSat propellant positioning technology.
- April 25th, 2025: Congratulations to Reyouf Alotaibi for successfully defending her MS thesis “Feasibility Study of a Ferrofluid Droplet Radiator for High-Power CubeSat Applications”!
- April 20th, 2025: Fun CU Boulder Aerospace outstanding alumni ceremony! Check the pictures from the event here.
- April 8th, 2025: Congrats to Stephanie González for landing one of the prestigious NSF GRFP fellowships!
- April 1st, 2025: Fraser Cain just published this fun interview, where we discuss our latest liquid mirror papers, our DARPA liquid mirror telescope project, and some other space science ideas. Reach out if you have any questions!
- February 17th, 2025: Dr. Romero-Calvo has received the Outstanding Alumni Award (Under 40) in the Technical Achievement and Technical Leadership category from the Ann and H.J. Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences Department at the University of Colorado Boulder. Sko Buffs!
- February 15th, 2025: Congratulations to Eric Comstock, Hugh Chen, and Tianyang Hu for publishing their paper ““On the Feasibility of Spherical Magnetic Liquid Mirror Telescopes” in Acta Astronautica!
- January 7th, 2025: Our department published today a cool press note on our recent parabolic flight campaign! Don’t miss it if you’re interested in how we tested our CubeSat propellant management devices.
- January 4th, 2025: Hugh Chen and Eric Comstock will be presenting their papers “Low-Gravity Testing of a Thermally Induced Phase Change Propellant Management Device” and “External Plasma-Breathing Magnetohydrodynamic Spacecraft Propulsion” next week at the AIAA SciTech 2025 Forum in Orlando, FL!
- January 1st, 2025: Congratulations to Dr. Sam Hart for publishing his last PhD paper, “Characterization of a Phase-Change Propellant Management Device”, in Acta Astronautica!
For older entries, check our News Log!