CubeSat

Four CubeSats by NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative are set to improve solar power, detect cosmic events, and analyze Earth’s water resources, aiding global agricultural and environmental research. Credit: NASA/JPL-CaltechNASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative (CSLI) is sending four CubeSats to the International Space Station to advance space-based technologies in solar power, gamma-ray burst detection, and water monitoring. Developed in collaboration with universities and NASA, these satellites aim to enhance our understanding…

Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket lifts off from Launch Complex 1 at Mahia, New Zealand at 11:46 a.m, May 25, 2023, carrying two TROPICS CubeSats for NASA. Credit: Rocket Lab<span class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>NASA</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>Established in 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is an independent agency of the United States Federal Government that succeeded the National Advisory…

For nearly five months, teams behind NASA’s Lunar Flashlight mission have been trying to get the briefcase-sized satellite to fire up its thrusters and get on the right orbital track around the Moon. There’s now some hope with one of the thrusters showing some improvement as work continues on the remaining three. Astronomers Could Soon Get Warnings When SpaceX Satellites Threaten Their ViewThe Lunar Flashlight’s operations team has developed a new method to get the satellite’s propulsion system up and running, with the…

A shoebox-sized satellite may soon meet its untimely death after failing to fire its thrusters. The cubesat may have been compromised as it excessively waited for launch on board NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket in advance of the Artemis 1 mission last year. Three Astronauts May Be Stranded on the ISS After Disturbing Soyuz Coolant LeakEngineers have been working to try and salvage the LunaH-Map cubesat mission, hoping to engage its propulsion system and give it a second chance at entering lunar orbit. It may be…

In an autonomous orbital ballet, Lockheed Martin's In-space Upgrade Satellite System (LM LINUSS) completed a demonstration of how highly automated CubeSats can upgrade and service increasingly common constellations of small satellites.One constant of commercial space operations is that launching satellites is always expensive and that it is often cost effective to simply abandon an otherwise perfectly good orbital asset because of a malfunction.That attitude has been changed in recent years with companies like Northrop…

Leer en español.A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched “The GroundBreaker” satellite this weekend in a shared mission with Spanish company Sateliot. GroundBreaker is the first satellite with standard 5G technology in low Earth orbit, and the first piece of a future constellation of 250 nanosatellites that aims to offer 5G connectivity from space for Internet of Things devices. Is This the End of Apple’s Lightning Cable?Weighing just 22 pounds (10 kilograms), GroundBreaker is poised to offer coverage to areas three times the…

SpaceX has packed more than 50 payloads into a Falcon 9 rocket as the company prepares for its latest rideshare mission. Astronomers Could Soon Get Warnings When SpaceX Satellites Threaten Their ViewThe Transporter-7 mission is scheduled to launch on Friday at 2:47 a.m. ET (Thursday at 11:47 p.m. PT) from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, according to SpaceX. You can watch the liftoff live through SpaceX’s website or by tuning in to the feed below. The live feed is scheduled to begin about 10 minutes before…

NASA engineers are struggling to get a lunar probe on the right track and have until the end of April to fix the spacecraft’s thrusters so that it is able to fly over the Moon’s South Pole.On Thursday, NASA provided the latest update on its Lunar Flashlight cubesat, which launched aboard a Falcon 9 rocket alongside Japan’s Hakuto-R lunar lander mission in December 2022. Shortly after launch, the spacecraft ran into some trouble when three of its four thrusters were underperforming on account of obstructed fuel lines. The…

An illustration of the EYE nano-satellite in Earth orbit. Illustration: SonyJapanese company Pale Blue pulled off the first test of its experimental water vapor propulsion system, flying a nano-satellite for the first time in space using an environmentally friendly, cost-efficient propellant. The water-based thrusters fired off for about two minutes on March 3, and data confirmed that the engine’s initial test was successful, the company announced on Monday. The propulsion system was tested on Sony’s first satellite for…

An artist’s impression of the CatSat and beachball-esque antenna, which features a clear bottom half and a reflective, aluminum-coated top half that will reflect data down to Earth. Illustration: FreeFall AerospaceIn an attempt to optimize communication in space across vast distances, a team of researchers from the University of Arizona will rely on a unique antenna for CatSat, a small satellite that will study the ionosphere. The antenna resembles a space-age beachball that can beam information to Earth at high…