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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

• July 14/15^th, 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 2^nd, 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 27^th, 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 8^th, 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 7^th, 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 25^th, 2025: Congratulations to Reyouf Alotaibi for successfully defending her MS thesis “Feasibility Study of a Ferrofluid Droplet Radiator for High-Power CubeSat Applications”!
• April 20^th, 2025: Fun CU Boulder Aerospace outstanding alumni ceremony! Check the pictures from the event here.
• April 8^th, 2025: Congrats to Stephanie González for landing one of the prestigious NSF GRFP fellowships!
• April 1^st, 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 17^th, 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 15^th, 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 7^th, 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 4^th, 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 1^st, 2025: Congratulations to Dr. Sam Hart for publishing his last PhD paper, “Characterization of a Phase-Change Propellant Management Device”, in Acta Astronautica!
• December 28^th, 2024: Our first journal article associated with the DARPA Zenith program was published today in the Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems.
• December 13^th, 2024: Congratulations to Matthias Kura on successfully defending his semester MS thesis at the Technical University of Munich! Prof. Gisela Detrell and Prof. Romero-Calvo co-advised Matthias’ work on magnetic phase separation for microalgae applications in microgravity.
• December 12^th, 2024: The International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer published today Dr. Sam Hart’s latest journal article on liquid metal heat transport for high-power CubeSat applications. Evan Sánchez is currently exploring this concept for hypersonic reentry vehicles.
• December 6^th, 2024: Sam Hart and Reyouf Alotaibi presented this week their work at the ASGSR Meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico. This was a great opportunity to reconnect with the microgravity science community!
• December 2^nd, 2024: Congratulations to Luca Scifoni and Francesco Isidori Pacelli for successfully defending their MS theses. Their work on active lunar dust mitigation will make us walk again on the Moon!
• November 8^th, 2024: Congratulations to Dr. Samuel Hart for successfully defending his PhD thesis, Thermoelectromagnetic Fluid Management in Microgravity! He will join SpaceX to work on the Starship ECLSS team next January. Way to go, Sam!
• November 8^th, 2024: Congratulations to Shay Vitale on landing one of the highly competitive IMS Facility Seed Grants for his MS project Manufacture of a Diamagnetically Enhanced PEM Electrolysis Cell!
• October 31^st, 2024: Our lab just completed the first parabolic flight campaign with the NASA TechFlights program! Boarding Zero G Corp’s G-Force One was a truly exhilarating experience. Looking forward to the next one!
• October 24^th, 2024: Congrats to Reyouf Alotaibi for passing her MS proposal on liquid droplet radiators!
• September 6^th, 2024: Congrats to Francesco Maria Isidori Pacelli for passing his MS proposal on flexible electrodynamic dust shielding!
• August 23^rd, 2024: Congrats to Luca Scifoni for passing his MS proposal on electrodynamic dust mitigation!
• August 9^th, 2024: Congrats to Theo St. Francis for winning the ARCS Scholars Award!
• July 29^th, 2024: Fun YouTube podcast on low-gravity with Fraser Cain! See more at https://youtu.be/fnKwzi7nvOU?si=wZrknt_HrPXvlCIT
• July 21^st, 2024: Fun LGST Lab field trip to the 53^rd International Conference on Environmental Systems in Louisville, KY. Sam Hart, Theo St. Francis, and Shay Vitale presented multiple papers on heat transfer, life support, and phase separation in low gravity.
• July 23^rd, 2024: Romain Fonteyne gave a presentation on our lunar dust mitigation work at the NASA Exploration Science Forum in St. Louis, MO.
• July 13^th, 2024: Our group gave four presentations this week at the 2024 COSPAR Scientific Assembly in Busan, South Korea, in collaboration with Prof. Katharina Brinkert’s group at the ZARM Institute in Bremen.
• June 16^th, 2024: This week, we presented several papers at the SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation conference in Yokohama! They are the first publications resulting from our DARPA Zenith grant with Honeywell Aerospace.
• May 15^th, 2024: Tatsuyoshi Kurumiya has joined the LGST Lab to support our NASA NIAC project on low-gravity magnetohydrodynamic water electrolysis over the summer. He will be working with Theo St. Francis as part of the Georgia Tech SURE program. Welcome to the lab, Tatsu!
• May 1^st, 2023: Today, Dr. Romero-Calvo was elected vice-chair of the AIAA Microgravity and Space Processes Technical Committee (MSPTC).
• April 25^th, 2024: Congrats to Taylor Hampson and Spencer Baird for being selected to join the CREATE-X Startup Launch 2024 summer program! They will initiate the commercialization of the magnetohydrodynamic liquid metal technology developed by the LGST lab.
• April 23^rd, 2024: R. Fonteyne is presenting the LGST Lab’s work on lunar dust mitigation today at the LSIC Spring Meeting in Laurel, MD, also on behalf of F. Isidori-Pacelli and L. Scifoni.
• April 4^th, 2024: Congratulations to Eric Comstock and Theo St. Francis for receiving the 2024 National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship! The program will support their research in magnetohydrodynamic Air-Breathing Electric Propulsion (ABEP) and multiphase mass transport in low-gravity water electrolysis. 
• April 4^th, 2024: New conference paper at the 2024 Region II AIAA Student Conference at Kennedy Space Center. The publication, named “Magnetic Field Mapper Using Commercial off the Shelf (COTS) Components“, is led by our undergraduate student Yubo Fu.
• April 1^st, 2024: Read more about Francesco Isidori Pacelli’s journey in this post from the Georgia Tech Europe campus!
• March 27^th, 2024: Dr. Romero-Calvo is presenting our NASA NIAC magnetohydrodynamic electrolysis work today at the Georgia Tech Energy Materials Day.
• February 26^th, 2024: NASA has selected our SmallSat magnetic positive positioning technology as part of the TechFlights 2023 cohort! Excited to fly our demonstrators onboard Zero Gravity Corp.’s parabolic plane.
• February 8^th, 2024: Our grad students R. Fonteyne, F. Isidori-Pacelli, and L. Scifoni are presenting their work on lunar dust mitigation through electrodynamic dust shielding at the ExplOrigins 2024 Colloquium in Atlanta.
• February 6^th, 2024: New conference paper at the 2024 AAS Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference in Breckenridge, CO. The publication, named “Open-Source Propellant Sloshing Modeling and Simulation“, is led by our undergraduate student Brian González.
• January 19^th, 2024: Congrats to Samuel Hart, Evan Sanchez, and Hadi Malik for publishing their paper “Neutral Buoyancy Testing of Low-Gravity Fluid Management” in the AIAA Journal!
• January 11^th, 2024: Congrats to Samuel T. Hart for winning the Best Small Satellite Student Paper Award at the 2024 AIAA SciTech Conference! He presented his paper “Leveraging Phase Change for CubeSat Propellant Positioning“. Interview here.
• January 5^th, 2024: Today, NASA announced the selection of our low-gravity magnetohydrodynamic water electrolysis technology for a NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts Phase I study. Excited to work on this new project! Read the full history here.
• January 4^th, 2024: This semester, we welcome Theo St. Francis, Francesco Isidori Pacelli, and Luca Scifoni to the LGST Lab! They will be working on low-gravity water electrolysis and lunar dust mitigation. Read more about them here and here!

For older entries, check our News Log!