Video: NASA Space Mission Named for LSU Star of Stars, the Late Professor Arlo Landolt

A recently approved NASA space mission will honor the late LSU Professor Arlo Landolt for his work in compiling widely used catalogs of stellar brightness from the 1970s through the 1990s.

The Landolt NASA Space Mission, set to launch in 2029, will put an artificial "star" in orbit around the Earth to allow scientists to calibrate telescopes and more accurately measure the brightness of stars. The artificial star will orbit earth 22,236 miles up, far enough away to look like a star to telescopes back on Earth. 

 

LSU Department of Physics & Astronomy Associate Professor Tabetha Boyajian, a member of the Landolt Mission team, says the mission will build upon Landolt's pioneering work and support astronomical research for decades to come.

“This is what is considered an infrastructure mission for NASA," said Peter Plavchan, the Landolt Mission primary investigator, "supporting the science in a way that we’ve known we needed to do, but with a transformative change in how we do it.”

Landolt joined the faculty of the LSU Department of Physics & Astronomy in 1962 and was instrumental in the development of the astronomy group within the department to international status. He passed away on Jan. 21, 2022, at the age of 86. 

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