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In recent years the number of CubeSats (U-class spacecrafts) launched into space has increased exponentially marking the dawn of the nanosatellite technology. In general these satellites have a much smaller mass budget compared to…

CubeSats and small satellites are emerging as low-cost tools to perform astronomy, exoplanet searches and earth observation. These satellites can be dedicated to pointing at targets for weeks or months at a time. This is typically not…

The exponential rise in small-satellites and CubeSats in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) poses important challenges for future space traffic management. At altitudes of 600 km and lower, aerodynamic drag accelerates de-orbiting of satellites.…

The payload of communications satellites must go through a series of tests to assert their ability to survive in space. Each test involves some equipment of the payload to be active, which has an impact on the temperature of the payload.…

HaloSat is a small satellite (CubeSat) designed to map soft X-ray oxygen line emission across the sky in order to constrain the mass and spatial distribution of hot gas in the Milky Way. The goal of HaloSat is to help determine if hot gas…

Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites are increasingly proposed for communication and in-orbit computing, achieving low-latency global services. However, their sustainability remains largely unexamined. This paper investigates the carbon…

Instruments flown on CubeSats are small. Meaningful applications of CubeSats in astronomical observations rely on the choice of a particular subject that is feasible for CubeSats. Here we report the result of a feasibility study for…

One of the greatest challenge facing current space weather monitoring operations is forecasting the arrival of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and Solar Energetic Particles (SEPs) within their Earth-Sun propagation timescales. Current…

A Drag-Free CubeSat mission has been proposed to demonstrate the feasibility of a Gravitational Reference Sensor (GRS) with an optical readout for a 3 units (3U) spacecraft. A purely drag-free object is defined by the absence of all…

Seventy-five billion low-mass stars in our galaxy host at least one small planet in their habitable zone (HZ). The stellar ultraviolet (UV) radiation received by the planets is strong and highly variable, and has consequences for…

Historically, materials such as lead, tungsten, and iron have been used in spacecraft to shield scientific detectors from Cosmic Rays. These materials work well when reentry to Earth is not an issue. The typical strategy is to have a…

CubeSats and small satellites are emerging as low-cost tools for performing science and exploration in deep space. These new classes of satellite exploit the latest advancement in miniaturization of electronics, power systems, and…

We present an approach to experimental radar systems education based on a combination of commercial low-cost hardware with modern open-source software technologies. Following a discussion of the general top-level architecture of flexible,…

Small low-cost instruments enable new and exciting mission opportunities yet their constrained volume and limited budgets make them especially susceptible to suffering anomalies during flight. Radiation effects as well as sensor or actuator…

The Star-Planet Activity Research CubeSat (SPARCS) is a NASA-funded 6U-CubeSat mission designed to monitor ultraviolet (UV) radiation from low-mass stars. These stars' relatively high-frequency and high-energy UV flares significantly affect…

The Educational Irish Research Satellite, known as EIRSAT-1, is a student-led project to design, build, test and launch Ireland's first satellite. The on-board software for this mission is being developed using Bright Ascension's…

CubeSats have become a meaningful option for deep-space exploration, but their autonomy must be increased to maximize the science return while limiting the complexity in operations. We present here a solution for an autonomous orbit…

We present here a low-cost Raspberry Pi (RPi)-based star sensor StarberrySense using commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components, developed and built for applications in small satellites and CubeSat-based missions. A star sensor is one of…

The second Miniature X-ray Solar Spectrometer (MinXSS-2) CubeSat, which begins its flight in late 2018, builds on the success of MinXSS-1, which flew from 2016-05-16 to 2017-05-06. The science instrument is more advanced -- now capable of…

The Gamma-ray Module (GMOD) is an experiment designed for the detection of gamma-ray bursts in low Earth orbit as the principal scientific payload on a 2-U CubeSat, EIRSAT-1. GMOD comprises a cerium bromide scintillator coupled to silicon…