Credit: The American Chemical Society

At the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California, NASA is preparing tiny satellites the size of briefcases for a mission to Mars.

Called CubeSats, swarms of these small marvels could potentially take on NASA's riskiest missions—think exploring the surface of Venus or the volcanoes of Io—at a lower cost than full-size, multi-instrument satellites.

Matt Davenport and JPL Chief Engineer for Interplanetary Small Spacecraft Andrew Klesh geek out on CubeSats in the latest Speaking of Chemistry episode.

Watch the video here:

Provided by American Chemical Society