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.
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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.
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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.
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NASA's Venture Class Launch Services program aims to use a new breed of smaller rockets to let CubeSats ride in luxury on their own personal, purpose-built spacecraft. The agency has now carried out its very first launch as part of this endeavor.
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An MIT team is working on a new aiming system that will allow CubeSats to use lasers for high-bandwidth communications with Earth. The new laser-pointing platform uses a second directional beam to keep the primary data beam on focus, allowing the CubeSat to transmit large amounts of data.
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Back in May, NASA launched some extra luggage along with the Mars InSight lander – two briefcase-sized CubeSats named MarCO-A and MarCO-B. These two little spacecraft are the first of their kind to venture into deep space, and now they've sent us back their first glimpse of the Red Planet.
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For over a century people have floated the idea of a space elevator – which is exactly what it sounds like – but the logistics of that just aren’t possible yet. Now Japan has launched a pair of satellites to test out some technologies that might help make a space elevator a reality in future.
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The ASTERIA satellite has claimed the first exoplanet to be detected by a CubeSat. It was able to accurately measure the transit light curve of 55 Cancri e as it passed in front of its parent star.
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When the latest Cygnus cargo mission to the SS lifts off, its manifest will include three CubeSats, including the first equipped with radar. The size of three cereal boxes and weighing only 26 lb (11.8 kg) each, the miniature satellites will be used to demonstrate new technologies in orbit.
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In a nod to the famous Pale Blue Dot image sent back by Voyager 1, the MarCO-B CubeSat has beamed back its own image of the Earth and the Moon. It's the first image from the two MarCO CubeSats and was transmitted a day after they reached a distance of 1 million km (621.371 mi) from the Earth.
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