CubeSat

Scientists are getting creative with propulsion methods for small spacecraft, including carrying water as fuel and converting it to steam. NASA’s OCSD mission has now leaned on this to pull off a first-of-a-kind maneuver between two of its CubeSats in low-Earth orbit.​

​​The way small satellites and scientific instruments find their way into space these days is by hitching a ride on large rockets carrying hefty payloads. But some are looking to change that, including SpaceX with a new launch program specifically for firing these small payloads into space.

The Planetary Society announced today that after unfurling its solar sail last week, the tiny spacecraft has successfully leveraged photons from the Sun to shift its trajectory in Earth orbit, a landmark moment in the history of space exploration. ​​

​​After launching into orbit aboard SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket last month, The Planetary Society’s LightSail 2 satellite has now entered the most critical phase of its mission, successfully unfurling its solar sail and starting to surf through space on the power of the Sun.

Mission plans for SULIS, a solar project designed to answer fundamental questions about the physics of solar storms, have been revealed. Using a cluster of small, formation-flying satellites known as CubeSats, SULIS will directly measuring the magnetic field of the Sun's corona for the first time.

Future spacecraft could be getting around under the power of sails. But of course, with no wind in space, these sails are catching another method of propulsion – photons from starlight. The tech is soon due to be demonstrated in action onboard LightSail 2, a small satellite due to launch next week.

If you thought SpaceX launching 60 Starlink satellites at once was impressive, Cornell University managed 105 small satellites. The ChipSats, called Sprites, forming a swarm of cracker-sized nanosatellites were deployed from the Kicksat-2 CubeSat on March 18, 2019 at an altitude of 300 km (186 mi).

Remember the garbage-collecting Oscar the Grouch, from Sesame Street? Well, an orbital-debris-gathering spacecraft now bears his name. Known as OSCaR ("Obsolete Spacecraft Capture and Removal"), the semi-autonomous craft is currently being developed at New York's Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Lockheed Martin is rolling out a new class of CubeSat that can be reprogrammed in orbit like a smartphone to take on new missions. The new SmartSat technology is being integrated into over 10 satellite programs to start with and the prototypes will be launched this year.

​In recent years, shoebox-sized "CubeSats" have made satellite technology available to groups that could otherwise never afford it. A new propulsion system, developed at Indiana's Purdue University, could now also make the devices more reliable.

The two MarCO CubeSats that accompanied NASA's InSight mission on its voyage to Mars have gone silent. Mission control has been unable to contact either of the briefcase-sized spacecraft for over a month as they continue to hurtle into deep space beyond the orbit of the Red Planet.

NASA is poised to send larger and larger telescopes into space over the next couple of decades and a team of researchers at MIT is working out how to use laser-equipped CubeSats to keep them fixed on target.