Cubesat - Blog Posts

nasa

1 year ago

This image shows a small spacecraft on a table enclosed on all sides except the one facing the camera. The sides of the enclosure are clear while the top has two dark gray panels with a light gray frame. The backside is also gray and reflects a strip of light from the room. The spacecraft’s body is a vertical golden rectangle. Shiny black solar panels extend to either side and are much wider than the spacecraft itself. There are a few wires connected to the table, which are visible underneath it. It’s watermarked, “Credit: NASA/Sophia Roberts.”

Tiny BurstCube's Tremendous Travelogue

Meet BurstCube! This shoebox-sized satellite is designed to study the most powerful explosions in the cosmos, called gamma-ray bursts. It detects gamma rays, the highest-energy form of light.

BurstCube may be small, but it had a huge journey to get to space.

Julie Cox, a mechanical engineer at Goddard, presses aluminized tape to the BurstCube instrument in a laboratory. Julie is wearing a mask, blue lab coat, and gloves, and is holding silver tweezers in one hand. The instrument, which is sitting on a table covered in hardware and tools, has raised silver-colored metal cylinders on top of a flat plate with triangular and rectangular cutouts. A roll of tape sits on the table in the foreground. The image is watermarked with “Credit: NASA/Sophia Roberts.”

First, BurstCube was designed and built at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Here you can see Julie Cox, an early career engineer, working on BurstCube’s gamma-ray detecting instrument in the Small Satellite Lab at Goddard.

BurstCube is a type of spacecraft called a CubeSat. These tiny missions give early career engineers and scientists the chance to learn about mission development — as well as do cool science!

This image shows a woman wearing a long-sleeved blue jacket and blue gloves. Her hair is bound up in a clip. She leans over a table, filling out a form. To the right, on the same table, is a shiny box within another clear box — the BurstCube satellite in its protective case. The dim room behind the woman is full of gray beams that cast shadows against the walls. There is an old white barn door in the far wall. The image is watermarked, “Credit: NASA/Sophia Roberts.”

Then, after assembling the spacecraft, the BurstCube team took it on the road to conduct a bunch of tests to determine how it will operate in space. Here you can see another early career engineer, Kate Gasaway, working on BurstCube at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

She and other members of the team used a special facility there to map BurstCube’s magnetic field. This will help them know where the instrument is pointing when it’s in space.

Three men in long-sleeved blue jackets, blue gloves, and red hard hats stand around a thermal vacuum chamber. The chamber has a square silver base and a conical white top. The man on the left is handing a wrench to a man standing on the base of the chamber. On the right, the third man looks up at the top of the chamber. They are in a lab with a high ceiling and lots of electrical equipment. An American flag hangs from the ceiling. The image is watermarked “Credit: NASA/Sophia Roberts.”

The next stop was back at Goddard, where the team put BurstCube in a vacuum chamber. You can see engineers Franklin Robinson, Elliot Schwartz, and Colton Cohill lowering the lid here. They changed the temperature inside so it was very hot and then very cold. This mimics the conditions BurstCube will experience in space as it orbits in and out of sunlight.

A man in a long-sleeved blue jacket, khaki pants, striped socks, and blue shoes sits on a rooftop. In front of him sits a small, shiny, rectangular spacecraft on top of a black case. Bundles of cables connect to the spacecraft and snake off to the right. He’s looking up at a dusky sky, which behind him is streaked with puffy pink and purple clouds. The horizon shows a line of treetops. The image is watermarked “Credit: NASA/Sophia Roberts.”

Then, up on a Goddard rooftop, the team — including early career engineer Justin Clavette — tested BurstCube’s GPS. This so-called open-sky test helps ensure the team can locate the satellite once it’s in orbit.

A black hard-shell box containing the tiny BurstCube satellite sits on a blue economy-class airplane seat by the window. The case has a blue circular NASA sticker, as well as a yellow square sticker, and three other multicolored stickers on the upper half of the case. It is strapped into the seat by a seatbelt. Outside of the window, the wing of the plane is visible, and beyond that, a faint view of the airport. The image is watermarked “Credit: NASA/Julie Cox.”

The next big step in BurstCube’s journey was a flight to Houston! The team packed it up in a special case and took it to the airport. Of course, BurstCube got the window seat!

In this image, a figure in a checkered clean suit and blue gloves loads the BurstCube satellite into a long, gray, rectangular container on a blue table. BurstCube is a smaller rectangle, with gray sides and a shiny black top, where its solar panels rest. In the background, there’s another figure in a clean suit and gloves. There’s a slight reflection that shows this picture was taken through a window. The image is watermarked, “Credit: NASA/Lucia Tian.”

Once in Texas, the BurstCube team joined their partners at Nanoracks (part of Voyager Space) to get their tiny spacecraft ready for launch. They loaded the satellite into a rectangular frame called a deployer, along with another small satellite called SNoOPI (Signals of Opportunity P-band Investigation). The deployer is used to push spacecraft into orbit from the International Space Station.

This photograph shows a rocket launching. The bottom of the image is filled with green vegetation interspersed with blue water. The sky is blue, with white clouds visible in the distance. The rocket is in the air, about two-thirds of the way to the top, followed by a fiery tail. Directly below it, at ground level, is white and gray plume of smoke. This image is watermarked, “Credit: NASA/Glenn Benson”

From Houston, BurstCube traveled to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, where it launched on SpaceX’s 30th commercial resupply servicing mission on March 21, 2024. BurstCube traveled to the station along with some other small satellites, science experiments, as well as a supply of fresh fruit and coffee for the astronauts.

In this photograph, the CRS-30 cargo mission is shown docking with the International Space Station. Against a black background, a white cone — the cargo mission — is attached to a cylinder with a whitish top. There are boxes in the foreground. The image is watermarked, “Credit: NASA.”

A few days later, the mission docked at the space station, and the astronauts aboard began unloading all the supplies, including BurstCube!

In this animated GIF, a boxy white tube extends at a 45-degree angle from the bottom right-hand corner. After a moment, two small, dark, rectangular objects come out of the tube. These are the BurstCube and SNoOPI CubeSats. They’re very close together initially, but as they move out of frame, they start to separate. In the background is the blue marble of Earth streaked with white clouds, as seen from the International Space Station. The image is watermarked “Credit: NASA.”

And finally, on April 18, 2024, BurstCube was released into orbit. The team will spend a month getting the satellite ready to search the skies for gamma-ray bursts. Then finally, after a long journey, this tiny satellite can embark on its big mission!

This is a photo of nine members of the BurstCube team. BurstCube is the shoebox-sized satellite sitting behind a clear case in the middle of the group. In the photo are three women and six men. Four people standing form a back row, and the remaining five kneel in front of them on a tile floor. Each wears a brightly colored protective jacket and some are attached by gray cords to the surfaces to help them avoid accumulating static electricity. On the ground in front of the team members is bright yellow caution tape. To the left of the image is additional equipment. The photo is watermarked “Credit NASA/Sophia Roberts.”

BurstCube wouldn’t be the spacecraft it is today without the input of many early career engineers and scientists. Are you interested in learning more about how you can participate in a mission like this one? There are opportunities for students in middle and high school as well as college!

Keep up on BurstCube’s journey with NASA Universe on X and Facebook. And make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

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nasa

3 years ago

CAPSTONE: Testing a Path to the Moon

Before NASA's Artemis astronauts head to the Moon, a microwave oven-sized spacecraft will help lead the way. The Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment, or CAPSTONE, is a CubeSat mission set to launch in spring of 2022. For at least six months, the small spacecraft will fly a unique elongated path around the Moon. Its trajectory—known as a near rectilinear halo orbit—has never been flown before! Once tried and tested, the same orbit will be home to NASA’s future lunar space station Gateway. Here are five things to know:

1. The 55-pound (25 kg) spacecraft is equipped with solar arrays, a camera, and antennae for communication and navigation.

2. Powerful thrusters will help propel the CubeSat toward the Moon.

3. CAPSTONE will fly a unique elongated path around the Moon for at least six months.

4. At its closest approach, it will come within 2,100 miles (3,380 km) of the Moon's North Pole.

5. The same orbit will be home to Gateway— our future outpost for Artemis astronauts heading to the Moon and beyond.

CAPSTONE is commercially owned and operated by Advanced Space in Westminster, Colorado. NASA’s Small Spacecraft Technology program within the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate funds the demonstration mission. The program is based at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. The development of CAPSTONE’s navigation technology is supported by NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer program. The Artemis Campaign Development Division within NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate funds the launch and supports mission operations. The Launch Services Program at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida manages the launch.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

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nasa

5 years ago

A Tiny Satellite Studies Stormy Layers

The gif above shows data taken by an experimental weather satellite of Hurricane Dorian on September 3, 2019. TEMPEST-D, a NASA CubeSat, reveals rain bands in four layers of the storm by taking the data in four different radio frequencies. The multiple vertical layers show where the most warm, wet air within the hurricane is rising high into the atmosphere. Pink, red and yellow show the areas of heaviest rainfall, while the least intense areas of rainfall are in green and blue.

How does an Earth satellite the size of a cereal box help NASA monitor storms?

The goal of the TEMPEST-D (Temporal Experiment for Storms and Tropical Systems Demonstration) mission is to demonstrate the performance of a CubeSat designed to study precipitation events on a global scale.

If TEMPEST-D can successfully track storms like Dorian, the technology demonstration could lead to a train of small satellites that work together to track storms around the world. By measuring the evolution of clouds from the moment of the start of precipitation, a TEMPEST constellation mission, collecting multiple data points over short periods of time, would improve our understanding of cloud processes and help to clear up one of the largest sources of uncertainty in climate models. Knowledge of clouds, cloud processes and precipitation is essential to our understanding of climate change.

What is a CubeSat, anyway? And what’s the U for?

CubeSats are small, modular, customizable vessels for satellites. They come in single units a little larger than a rubix cube - 10cmx10cmx10cm - that can be stacked in multiple different configurations. One CubeSat is 1U. A CubeSat like TEMPEST-D, which is a 6U, has, you guessed it, six CubeSat units in it.

Pictured above is a full-size mockup of MarCO, a 6U CubeSat that recently went to Mars with the Insight mission. They really are about the size of a cereal box!

We are using CubeSats to test new technologies and push the boundaries of Earth Science in ways never before imagined. CubeSats are much less expensive to produce than traditional satellites; in multiples they could improve our global storm coverage and forecasting data.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

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nasa

6 years ago

Meet Our Latest CubeSats

When the next Orbital ATK cargo mission to the International Space Station blasts off from Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia on May 20 at 5:04 a.m. EDT carrying science and supplies, the Cygnus spacecraft will also be carrying a few of our latest CubeSats.

The International Space Station is often used to deploy small satellites, a low-cost way to test technology and science techniques in space.

On board this time, for deployment later this summer, are...

The ‘Rabbit’ in the RainCube

As its name suggests, RainCube will use radar to measure rain and snowfall. CubeSats are measured in increments of 1U (A CubeSat unit, or 1U, is roughly equivalent to a 4-inch box, or 10x10x10 centimeters). The RainCube antenna has to be small enough to be crammed into a 1.5U container; the entire satellite is about as big as a cereal box.

"It's like pulling a rabbit out of a hat," said Nacer Chahat, a specialist in antenna design at our Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "Shrinking the size of the radar is a challenge for us. As space engineers, we usually have lots of volume, so building antennas packed into a small volume isn't something we're trained to do."

That small antenna will deploy in space, like an upside-down umbrella. To maintain its small size, the antenna relies on the high-frequency Ka-band wavelength – good for profiling rain and snow. Ka-band also allows for an exponential increase in sending data over long distances, making it the perfect tool for telecommunications.

Peering Into Clouds

TEMPEST-D will also study weather. Temporal Experiment for Storms and Tropical Systems – Demonstration (TEMPEST-D) has satellite technology with the potential to measure cloud and precipitation processes on a global basis. These measurements help improve understanding of Earth’s water cycle and weather predictions, particularly conditions inside storms.

TEMPEST-D millimeter-wave observations have the ability to penetrate into clouds to where precipitation initiation occurs. By measuring the evolution of clouds from the moment of the onset of precipitation, a future TEMPEST constellation mission could improve weather forecasting and improve our understanding of cloud processes, essential to understanding climate change.

Cutting Through the Noise

CubeRRT, also the size of a cereal box, will space test a small component designed to detect and filter radio frequency interference (RFI). RFI is everywhere, from cellphones, radio and TV transmissions, satellite broadcasts and other sources. You probably recognize it as that annoying static when you can’t seem to get your favorite radio station to come in clearly because another station is nearby on the dial.

The same interference that causes radio static also affects the quality of data that instruments like microwave radiometers collect. As the number of RFI-causing devices increases globally, our satellite instruments – specifically, microwave radiometers that gather data on soil moisture, meteorology, climate and more – will be more challenged in collecting high-quality data.

That’s where CubeSat Radiometer Radio frequency interference Technology (CubeRRT) comes in. The small satellite will be carrying a new technology to detect and filter any RFI the satellite encounters in real-time from space. This will reduce the amount of data that needs to be transmitted back to Earth – increasing the quality of important weather and climate measurements.

Searching the Halo of the Milky Way

Did you know that we’re still looking for half of the normal matter that makes up the universe? Scientists have taken a census of all the stars, galaxies and clusters of galaxies — and we’re coming up short, based on what we know about the early days of the cosmos.

That missing matter might be hiding in tendrils of hot gas between galaxies. Or it might be in the halos of hot gas around individual galaxies like our own Milky Way. But if it’s there, why haven’t we seen it? It could be that it’s so hot that it glows in a spectrum of X-rays we haven’t looked at before.

Image Credit: Blue Canyon Technologies

Enter HaloSat. Led by the University of Iowa, HaloSat will search the halo of the Milky Way for the emissions oxygen gives off at these very high temperatures. Most other X-ray satellites look at narrow patches of the sky and at individual sources. HaloSat will look at large swaths of the sky at a time, which will help us figure out the geometry of the halo — whether it surrounds the galaxy more like a fried egg or a sphere. Knowing the halo’s shape will in turn help us figure out the mass, which may help us discover if the universe’s missing matter is in galactic halos.

CubeSats for All

Small satellites benefit Earth and its people (us!) in multiple ways. From Earth imaging satellites that help meteorologists to predict storm strengths and direction, to satellites that focus on technology demonstrations to help determine what materials function best in a microgravity environment, the science enabled by CubeSats is diverse.

They are also a pathway to space science for students. Our CubeSat Launch initiative (CSLI) provides access to space for small satellites developed by our Centers and programs, educational institutions and nonprofit organizations. Since the program began, more than 50 educational CubeSats have flown. In 2016, students built the first CubeSat deployed into space by an elementary school.

Learn more about CubeSats HERE.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

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nasa

7 years ago

10 Things: Journey to the Center of Mars

May the fifth be with you because history is about to be made: As early as May 5, 2018, we’re set to launch Mars InSight, the very first mission to study the deep interior of Mars. We’ve been roaming the surface of Mars for a while now, but when InSight lands on Nov. 26, 2018, we’re going in for a deeper look. Below, 10 things to know as we head to the heart of Mars.

Coverage of prelaunch and launch activities begins Thursday, May 3, on NASA Television and our homepage.

1. What’s in a name?

"Insight" is to see the inner nature of something, and the InSight lander—a.k.a. Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport—will do just that. InSight will take the "vital signs" of Mars: its pulse (seismology), temperature (heat flow) and reflexes (radio science). It will be the first thorough check-up since the planet formed 4.5 billion years ago.

2. Marsquakes.

You read that right: earthquakes, except on Mars. Scientists have seen a lot of evidence suggesting Mars has quakes, and InSight will try to detect marsquakes for the first time. By studying how seismic waves pass through the different layers of the planet (the crust, mantle and core), scientists can deduce the depths of these layers and what they're made of. In this way, seismology is like taking an X-ray of the interior of Mars.

Want to know more? Check out this one-minute video.

3. More than Mars.

InSight is a Mars mission, but it’s also so much more than that. By studying the deep interior of Mars, we hope to learn how other rocky planets form. Earth and Mars were molded from the same primordial stuff more than 4.5 billion years ago, but then became quite different. Why didn’t they share the same fate? When it comes to rocky planets, we’ve only studied one in great detail: Earth. By comparing Earth's interior to that of Mars, InSight's team hopes to better understand our solar system. What they learn might even aid the search for Earth-like planets outside our solar system, narrowing down which ones might be able to support life.

4. Robot testing.

InSight looks a bit like an oversized crane game: When it lands on Mars this November, its robotic arm will be used to grasp and move objects on another planet for the first time. And like any crane game, practice makes it easier to capture the prize.

Want to see what a Mars robot test lab is like? Take a 360 tour.

5. The gang’s all here.

InSight will be traveling with a number of instruments, from cameras and antennas to the heat flow probe. Get up close and personal with each one in our instrument profiles.

6. Trifecta.

InSight has three major parts that make up the spacecraft: Cruise Stage; Entry, Descent, and Landing System; and the Lander. Find out what each one does here.

7. Solar wings.

Mars has weak sunlight because of its long distance from the Sun and a dusty, thin atmosphere. So InSight’s fan-like solar panels were specially designed to power InSight in this environment for at least one Martian year, or two Earth years.

8. Clues in the crust.

Our scientists have found evidence that Mars’ crust is not as dense as previously thought, a clue that could help researchers better understand the Red Planet’s interior structure and evolution. “The crust is the end-result of everything that happened during a planet’s history, so a lower density could have important implications about Mars’ formation and evolution,” said Sander Goossens of our Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

9. Passengers.

InSight won’t be flying solo—it will have two microchips on board inscribed with more than 2.4 million names submitted by the public. "It's a fun way for the public to feel personally invested in the mission," said Bruce Banerdt of our Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the mission's principal investigator. "We're happy to have them along for the ride."

10. Tiny CubeSats, huge firsts.

The rocket that will loft InSight beyond Earth will also launch a separate NASA technology experiment: two mini-spacecraft called Mars Cube One, or MarCO. These suitcase-sized CubeSats will fly on their own path to Mars behindInSight. Their goal is to test new miniaturized deep space communication equipment and, if the MarCOs make it to Mars, may relay back InSight data as it enters the Martian atmosphere and lands. This will be a first test of miniaturized CubeSat technology at another planet, which researchers hope can offer new capabilities to future missions.

Check out the full version of ‘Solar System: 10 Thing to Know This Week’ HERE.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

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space marco lander science nasa mars interior planet solar system launch core spacecraft insight cubesat red planet rocky planet Marsquakes May5 CincoDeMayo

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