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.
Space Exploration
Oct 23, 2018
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(AP) -- Four years after its first solar sail ended up in the ocean instead of orbit, The Planetary Society announced Monday that by the end of 2010 it will try again to launch a spacecraft that will be propelled by the ...
Space Exploration
Nov 9, 2009
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Two small NASA satellites that were meant to study hurricane development failed to enter orbit Sunday when their Astra rocket shut off before reaching the necessary altitude, the US space agency said.
Space Exploration
Jun 13, 2022
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A European Vega rocket lifted off Monday night from French Guiana carrying an Earth observation satellite and four miniature "cubesats".
Space Exploration
Aug 17, 2021
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NASA's next attempt to map invisible specks in the atmosphere that impact climate change and air quality started from a window seat over the Pacific.
Earth Sciences
Oct 28, 2019
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Only a few years ago, the astronomy and heliophysics communities were skeptical about whether CubeSats could reliably obtain scientific data. But these breadloaf-size satellites have proven their ability to return useful ...
Space Exploration
Apr 16, 2019
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Two NASA CubeSats teamed up on an impromptu optical, or laser, communications pointing experiment. The laser beam is seen as a brief flash of light close to the center of the focal plane, to the left of Earth's horizon.
Space Exploration
Apr 10, 2019
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Using an army of small satellites, researchers have shown that water levels in small lakes across northern Canada and Alaska are far more variable during the summer than previously thought. The findings, published in Geophysical ...
Environment
Feb 14, 2019
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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 ...
Space Exploration
Feb 5, 2019
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A pair of tiny experimental satellites trailing NASA's InSight spacecraft all the way to Mars face their biggest test yet.
Space Exploration
Nov 22, 2018
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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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