Tag Archives: CubeSat
FCC accuses startup of launching satellites without permission
Life isn't easy if you're a space technology startup: in addition to the outlandish costs, you have to clear all kinds of regulatory challenges that might cut your plans short if there's a snag. One company might not have been willing to take "no" f...
A tiny NASA satellite mapped Earth’s atmospheric ice
Last May, NASA launched a small, bread loaf-sized satellite into orbit around Earth. Dubbed IceCube, the satellite's mission was to measure cloud ice in our planet's atmosphere -- a challenging task that researchers have previously only been able to...
Japan launches smallest rocket ever to carry satellite into orbit
Japan has set a new spaceflight record -- and unlike most of these feats, it's defined by what wasn't involved. The country's Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has successfully launched the smallest-ever rocket to carry a satellite into orbit, a m...
ESA picks two tiny spacecraft to study the dark side of the Moon
Tiny cube spacecraft aren't just useful around Earth's orbit. The European Space Agency has chosen two winners in a competition to build cubesats that will study the dark side of the Moon. The first, the Lunar Meteoroid Impact Orbiter (Lumio), woul...
Mini-Hubble will scan dim stars to see if they can support life
It doesn't take hugely expensive space telescopes like the Hubble and future James Webb Space Telescope to hunt for habitable exoplanets. NASA and the University of Arizona will launch a small telescope the size of a cereal box called the Star-Planet...
The robots that will sweep Earth’s skies
After six years in space, China's first orbital station, the Tiangong-1 (aka the "Heavenly Palace") has finally outlived its operational limits and begun its descent back to Earth. It's expected to re-enter the atmosphere in a few months, whereupon a...
Vector successfully launches prototype rocket for small satellites
Today, Vector, a company that aims to deliver small and nano-satellites into orbit, successfully launched a full-scale prototype of its Vector-R rocket. It was a suborbital flight; the rocket took off from a spaceport in Camden, GA. It's the first fo...
Japan’s experimental mini rocket launch ends in failure
Japan's space program troubles aren't over yet, apparently. The country's Aerospace Exploration Agency reports that the launch of its miniature SS-520 rocket ended in failure. The first stage went off without a hitch, but communications problems prev...
NASA plans to launch swarms of small satellites to study Earth
NASA announced its plans to deploy multiple swarms of tiny weather-sensing, climate change-observing satellites over the next few months during a teleconference held on Monday. The satellites will not only help advance climate science but also enable...