CubeSat tagged posts

The CubeSat just before it was brought into the launch facility. Credit: University of Colorado Boulder

Charged particles in Earth’s inner radiation belt created by cosmic rays born from supernova explosions. CubeSats, named for the roughly 4-inch-cubed dimensions of their basic building elements, are stacked with smartphone-like electronics and tiny scientific instruments. Built mainly by students and hitching rides into orbit on NASA and U.S. Department of Defense launch vehicles, the small, low-cost satellites have been making history.

Now, results from a new study using CubeSats indicate that energetic electrons in Earth’s inner radiation belt – primarily near its inner edge – are created by cosmic rays born from supernova explosions, said scientist Xinlin Li of the University of Color...

A rendering of the Cislunar Explorers CubeSat separating after deployment. Credit: Kyle Doyle

Cislunar Explorers, a team of Cornell University students guided by Mason Peck, a former senior official at NASA and associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, is attempting to boldly go where no CubeSat team has gone before: around the moon. Not only is Peck’s group attempting to make a first-ever moon orbit with a satellite no bigger than a cereal box, made entirely with off-the-shelf materials, it’s doing so with propellant that you can obtain simply by turning on a faucet. “This has a very important goal, and that is to demonstrate that you can use water as a propellant,” said Peck, who served as NASA’s chief technologist in 2012-13.

The Cislunar Explorers – cislunar means “b...