NASA’s own future plans for CubeSat work take in BioSentinel, which would take living yeast (S. I should also mention LightSail-3, which could take this technology out to the L1 Lagrangian point, where it would remain to monitor geomagnetic activity on the Sun. A key goal of this mission is to raise the orbit apogee after sail deployment at 720 kilometers.
LightSail-2 is designed to demonstrate controlled solar sailing in the CubeSat format, with a sail of 32 square meters.
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Remember, for example, The Planetary Society’s LightSail-1, launched in 2015, which demonstrated sail deployment despite a series of major software glitches. Of particular interest is coupling CubeSats with solar sails for propulsion. If we can build these craft strong enough to handle relay operations from Mars, we can contemplate future CubeSats capable of a wider range of science return and consider propulsion technologies like solar sails for ‘swarm’ missions to targets beyond Mars. Moreover, the fact that CubeSats can be built with standardized parts and systems, with key components provided by commercial partners, underscores their efficiency.īut let’s move beyond today’s current CubeSat. Even universities could do this.”įair enough, as we’ve learned how satellites can be ‘piggybacked’ to open up access to space, lowering launch costs even as the cost of the CubeSats offers opportunities for inexpensive missions. “The technology is cheap enough that you could envision countries entering space that weren’t players in the past. “Our hope is that MarCO could help democratize deep space,” said Jakob Van Zyl, director of the Solar System Exploration Directorate at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. No one would claim the diminutive space travelers are as complex as conventional interplanetary craft, but I can see two goals here, the first of which leverages the ‘traditional’ CubeSat role of acting as low-cost entry-level ways to reach orbit. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.Įach of the MarCOs has its own high-gain antenna and the necessary radio equipment for data relay, with propulsion systems that have already made two steering maneuvers enroute. Antennas and solar arrays are in deployed configuration.
Front cover is left out to show some internal components. Image: Illustration of one of the twin MarCO spacecraft with some key components labeled. At Mars, the intention is for them to relay data on InSight’s landing, a job consigned to Mars orbiters, but one this mission may show CubeSats are able to perform. Trailing InSight by thousands of kilometers, they’ve already demonstrated their ability to operate in the interplanetary environment. What we have with the two MarCO spacecraft is the application of what had been a low-Earth orbit satellite technology to a planetary mission, with a useful goal. With fixed satellite body dimensions, the CubeSat format creates a highly modular and integrated system. The standard 10×10×11 cm basic CubeSat is a ‘one unit’ (1U) CubeSat, but larger platforms of 6U and 12U allow more complex missions. And CubeSats are a way of exploring small payloads. But experimental technologies that bring us greater performance from very small payloads are certainly relevant.Īnything we can do to shrink payload size pays off as we look at ever more distant targets, and the cruise velocities and propellant needed to reach them. I don’t usually focus on Mars and lunar missions because this site’s specialty is deep space, which for our purposes means Jupiter and beyond, and of course the overall theme here is interstellar. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.Īs of this morning, we are 66 days away from InSight’s landing on Mars, at a distance of 65 million kilometers from Earth and 16 million kilometers to Mars. The image, which shows both the CubeSat’s unfolded high-gain antenna at right and the Earth and its moon in the center, was acquired by MarCO-B on May 9. Image: The first image captured by one of NASA’s Mars Cube One (MarCO) CubeSats. But to me it’s a reminder of how far miniaturized technologies continue to advance. Taken on May 9, the photo was part of the process of testing the CubeSat’s high-gain antenna. It’s the first image of the Earth and the Moon together taken from a CubeSat, one of a pair of such tiny spacecraft NASA has despatched to Mars as part of a mission called MarCO (Mars Cube One), which will work in conjunction with the InSight lander.
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