An artist's rendering of SPARCS in low-Earth orbit. Credit: ASU/SPARCS Team
The Little CubeSat That Could: SPARCS Captures First Light
After years of anticipation, the Star-Planet Activity Research CubeSat (SPARCS) has seen first light, sending its first round of ultraviolet images back to Earth on February 6, 2026. For Principal Investigator Dr. Evgenya Shkolnik and her collaborative team of students, researchers, and scientists — including Lowell’s Dr. Joe Llama — achieving first light marks the moment that SPARCS shifted from an educational tool and tech demo to a functional observatory.
“To see those first images beamed back down to Earth from our little CubeSat was just amazing,” says Llama.
A CubeSat, or Cube Satellite, is a compact, standardized satellite used primarily in low-Earth orbit. Due to their small size and use of commercial, off-the-shelf components, they are significantly cheaper to build and launch than traditional satellites.
Roughly the size and shape of a large cereal box, SPARCS was designed to monitor flares and sunspot activity on low-mass stars, also known as M-type stars, M stars, or M dwarfs. These small, dim, cool stars are only 30% to 70% the mass of our Sun and are among the most common in the Milky Way, hosting the majority of the galaxy’s estimated 50 billion “habitable zone” terrestrial planets.
Being in low-Earth orbit, SPARCS is able to observe in wavelengths that are blocked by Earth’s atmosphere. Despite being observationally challenging to observe, these wavelengths are fundamental to understanding how environmental variations in space driven by solar activity can impact the atmosphere of a potentially habitable exoplanet. While Earth’s atmosphere is essential for life, it acts as an opaque barrier to ultraviolet light and absorbs most UV radiation before it ever reaches ground-based telescopes. To see these wavelengths, scientists have to get an eye above the ozone layer and the thickest parts of our atmosphere. Even from space, these photons are ‘high-energy’ and elusive, requiring specialized, high-sensitivity detectors to capture them before they scatter.
M stars are notoriously “moody” in their solar activity, tending to flare 100 times more than our own Sun. For a star, a “flare” refers to a sudden, dramatic, and unpredictable increase in brightness that can range from minutes to hours in length. The massive amounts of radiation released by flares can strip Earth-sized planets of their atmospheres, rendering them uninhabitable. By capturing first light, SPARCS has proven that it can track the solar activity of these stars with the precision needed to determine if their orbiting planets could potentially support life.
This milestone also proves that groundbreaking research doesn’t require a billion-dollar budget. As a CubeSat, SPARCS offers a cost-effective way to test advanced infrared detector technology developed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). By providing a better understanding of stellar flares, the CubeSat will help scientists interpret data from larger operations like the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and refine the search for the next habitable world by acting as a ‘scout’ to tell these larger telescopes exactly where to look.
So, what’s next for SPARCS? The telescope is now on track to provide an unprecedented amount of ultraviolet data on low-mass stars, which will prove invaluable in the interpretation of data from JWST and NASA’s next flagship mission, the Habitable Worlds Observatory.
Over the course of its one-year mission, the miniature satellite is set to target approximately 20 low-mass stars and observe them over durations of five to 45 days. First light is just the beginning for SPARCS as it joins humanity’s search for a habitable planet beyond our own.