Tag Archives: CubeSat

NASA's Ames Research Center has entered the final phase of preparations needed for an upcoming six-month biology mission that aims to measure how space radiation can affect living organisms. The BioSentinel mission would lift off with 12 other CubeSats on the Space Launch System (SLS) for the first Artemis flight. 

NASA has launched an environmental test for the propulsion system of a small satellite that would verify the safety of the Moon's cislunar orbit. The space agency said Tuesday its Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment or CAPSTONE would study the unique orbit's dynamics to reduce risks of NASA's planned Gateway lunar outpost.

A cubesat designed to help the U.S. Army demonstrate the collection of data from overhead satellites to support battlefield surveillance and combat operations will fly aboard Rocket Lab’s Electron vehicle in mid-March. The Gunsmoke-J spacecraft is one of the seven satellites that will take off from New Zealand as part of the 19th launch mission of the Electron rocket.

The International Space Station (ISS) has deployed a CubeSat that holds new radio, propulsion and communications technologies, as well as improved power performance and increased storage. TechEdSat-10, the 10th entry to the Technology Educational Satellite series, features four cameras, nine processors, one graphics processing unit, eight radios and power storage with the capacity for 150 watt-hours.

Christopher Scolese, director of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), said the NRO is becoming more dependent on small satellites to support research experiments. He said the agency is leveraging low-cost launch services and small satellites to bring more technology platforms in space to explore future mission capabilities.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has pursued an effort to demonstrate the capture of distant space images through CubeSat-based telescopes. The International Space Station on July 13 deployed the agency's Deformable Mirror or DeMi CubeSat satellite that features a miniature telescope with microelectromechanical technology.

NASA carried out a laser communications pointing test through two deployed CubeSats from space. The satellites recorded a flash of light from a laser communications platform aboard the Optical Communications and Sensor Demonstration spacecraft with a short-wavelength infrared camera within the CubeSat Multispectral Observation System payload, the agency said Wednesday.

NASA unveiled a batch of candidates to participate in CubeSat satellite missions to take place over the next three years. The space agency said Friday that it will launch 16 small research satellites as auxiliary payloads at missions scheduled for 2020, 2021 and 2022 under the CubeSat Launch Initiative.

NASA intends to execute a mission to assist scientists in the forecast and research Earth's space weather systems. The Atmospheric Waves Experiment initiative seeks to study atmospheric airglows to confirm the mixture of forces that are contributing to space climate in the upper atmosphere, the agency said Tuesday. Researchers have also noted that the Earth's climate and the Sun's outflow of ultraviolet light particles potentially affect space weather conditions.

NASA has chosen two research projects to build space instruments that will study Arctic warming and the effects of mineral dust on the atmosphere. The space agency said Tuesday it selected the Polar Radiant Energy in the Far Infrared Experiment, or PREFIRE, and the Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation, or EMIT, …