NASA CubeSats steer toward Mars

NASA has achieved a first for the class of tiny spacecraft known as CubeSats, which are opening new access to space.

NASA's First Image of Mars from a CubeSat

NASA's MarCO mission was designed to find out if briefcase-sized spacecraft called CubeSats could survive the journey to deep space. Now, MarCO—which stands for Mars Cube One—has Mars in sight.

A pale blue dot, as seen by a CubeSat

NASA's Voyager 1 took a classic portrait of Earth from several billion miles away in 1990. Now a class of tiny, boxy spacecraft, known as CubeSats, have just taken their own version of a "pale blue dot" image, capturing Earth ...

Beyond Mars, the mini MarCO spacecraft fall silent

Before the pair of briefcase-sized spacecraft known collectively as MarCO launched last year, their success was measured by survival: If they were able to operate in deep space at all, they would be pushing the limits of ...

NASA's first deep-space CubeSats say: 'Polo!'

NASA has received radio signals indicating that the first-ever CubeSats headed to deep space are alive and well. The first signal was received at 12:15 p.m. PST (3:15 p.m. EST) yesterday; the second at 1:58 p.m. PST (4:58 ...

ArduSat-1 and ArduSat-X CubeSats launched into space

(Phys.org) —Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has successfully launched an H-2B cargo rocket into space—a portion of which is bound for a rendezvous with the International Space Station. After it docks, two CubeSats—ArduSat-1 ...

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CubeSat

A CubeSat is a type of miniaturized satellite for space research that usually has a volume of exactly one liter (10 cm cube), has a mass of no more than 1.33 kilograms, and typically uses commercial off-the-shelf electronics components. Beginning in 1999, California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) and Stanford University developed the CubeSat specifications to help universities worldwide to perform space science and exploration.

The majority of development comes from academia, but several companies have built CubeSats, including large-satellite-maker Boeing. The CubeSat format is also popular with amateur radio satellite builders.

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