NASA, UMass Lowell team launch telescope to identify distant space objects
NewsOctober 06, 2025
NASA COLUMBIA SCIENTIFIC BALLOON FACILITY, New Mex. NASA recently launched a telescope designed and built by a team at University of Massachusetts Lowell (UMass Lowell) and the space agency that aims to identify planets beyond the solar system and find other objects in space that would otherwise go unnoticed because they are hidden by the glare of nearby stars.
Known as “PICTURE-D,” the instrument -- weighing in at 1,500 pounds and measuring 14 feet long by 4 feet wide -- includes the fourth iteration of a specialized imaging and optical-control system built by a research team at UMass Lowell's Lowell Center for Space Science and Technology (LoCCST) and the NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The coronagraph device helps produce stable still images and can block light to better take pictures of objects close to stars.
The telescope was tethered to a gigantic helium balloon inflated to about 39 million cubic feet – about the size of a football field – and lifted off at 11:40 a.m. ET on Wednesday, Oct. 1 from the NASA Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Fort Sumner, New Mexico. The balloon carried the device to the edge of the atmosphere, to a height of about 120,000 feet, where it remained into the night, collecting images of the cosmos for researchers to analyze back at UMass Lowell.
The research aims to advance scientific knowledge and develop several key imaging technologies capable of viewing planets beyond the solar system for future large-scale NASA space flights, according to UMass Lowell’s Christopher Mendillo, an electrical and computer engineering associate professor who is the lead investigator and scientist on the mission. “We hope to capture images of planetary systems beyond the solar system, specifically large rings of dust, rock and ice that fill the space between planets. These objects are extremely faint and require a coronagraph to detect them against the bright glare of a star,” Mendillo said. “What we’re hoping to see are signposts of planets, evidence of planets. Eventually, in future missions with more powerful instruments, we hope to image planets themselves.”
Once the mission was completed, NASA controllers on the ground released the cable that tethered the balloon to the telescope, which enabled the device to parachute safely to Earth. Controllers also punctured the balloon so that it dropped separately for a soft landing.
