#cubesat

Tiny BurstCube's Tremendous Travelogue

Meet BurstCube! This shoebox-sized satellite is designed to study the most powerful explosions in the cosmos, called gamma-ray bursts. It detects gamma rays, the highest-energy form of light.

BurstCube may be small, but it had a huge journey to get to space.

NASA Image of the Day (Feb 10, 2026)

CubeSats’ Missions Begin

A pair of CubeSats designed by college students from around the world is deployed into Earth orbit from a small satellite orbital deployer on the outside of the International Space Station's Kibo laboratory module. Students from Mexico, Italy, Thailand, Malaysia, and Japan designed the shoe-boxed sized satellites for a series of Earth observations and technology demonstrations.

Astronomers typically deal with the very, very large – big telescopes, giant galaxies, and massive exploding stars. But one of the more revolutionary astronomy tools of the decade is a mini satellite about the size of a breadbox. The satellite will act like an artificial star for astronomers to observe from the ground, allowing them to more accurately measure a space object's brightness and better understand some of the biggest mysteries in our universe, like dark energy. NASA recently approved the US$19.5 million Landolt Space Mission to launch the mini satellite into Earth's orbit.

Massimo Luciani - A success for the launch of NASA’s Pandora, BlackCAT, and SPARCS astronomical missions:

https://english.tachyonbeam.com/2026/01/11/a-success-for-the-launch-of-nasas-pandora-blackcat-and-sparcs-astronomical-missions/

Couple of requirements.

The submission form only accepts rasterized images so make sure to work at or scan your work at 300DPI.

The art will be laser cut onto radiation panels on the Dove spacecraft. So no more than 20% of the surface can be drawn on. Fine line work that isn't too detailed works best.

The spacecraft are launching late 2021 (may the launch gods oblige 🙏🏽) and selected artists will be contacted shortly before the launch.

Submissions due by May 1st 2021.

NASA ‘LightCube’ Mission To ‘Flash’ Earth Despite Ethics, Light Pollution Concerns

"There are all sorts of types of pollution that we create where we don’t consider the ill effects until it’s too late to reverse course. The idea of seeing a signal from space that’s activated explicitly by one human user, but that will affect every ground-based observer who has a clear line-of-sight to that satellite, is unconscionable for an astronomer. We have extremely tight regulations on cities, infrastructure, and ground-based light sources near an observatory, and it’s now apparent that even a student-run project, even one vetted by NASA, can circumvent all of that hard work with one ill-considered decision.

The truth should be more apparent than ever: we need guidelines, regulation, and consistency when it comes to preserving the night sky for all of humanity. Amateurs and professionals alike benefit from dark, clear skies, as do all humans and animals. The true value of dark, pristine skies has never been quantified, but the ill effects of losing our darkness have been measured on the health, sleep, and longevity of humans and other living creatures. We’re all free to live and create exactly as we choose, but not at the expense of the health, wellness, and freedom of others."

LightSail-2 deploys solar sail, beginning orbital operations (July 23, 2019).

Four weeks after launching on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Florida, The Planetary Society’s LightSail-2 spacecraft successfully deployed its solar sail July 23.

Four cobalt-alloy booms unraveled from the main spacecraft bus with the triangular segments of mylar sail material. Once fully unraveled, LightSail 2′s solar sail covers roughly 32 square meters. Deployment occurred at 12:45am EDT over Mexico in range of the mission’s San Luis Obispo, California control center. Two cameras with a 185 degree field of view provided footage of sail deployment and other orbital imagery during the spacecraft’s mission. The spacecraft is orbiting 447 miles above the Earth.

LightSail-2 undergoing preflight sail deployment testing in California in 2016. P/c: The Planetary Society. LightSail-2 is the Planetary Society’s second, larger solar sail testbed spacecraft, having launched the smaller LightSail-1 in 2015. That mission, which launched piggyback with the X-37B spaceplane on an Atlas V rocket, spent 25 days orbiting the Earth and validating the spacecraft’s sail design. Major differences between the two spacecraft include the addition of a reaction wheel to orient the spacecraft and a cluster of mirror’s on the vehicle’s underside that will aid in precise ground-based measurements.

With LightSail-2, the Society hopes to prove that sails could be used for orbit raising and other maneuvers in space, ultimately reducing the cost for cubesats to travel beyond low Earth orbit. Solar Sailing as a technology was first proposed by Planetary Society cofounder Carl Sagan in the late 1970s as a method of deep-space propulsion that utilized photos from the sun as fuel. Much the same way as wind on Earth pushes a ship’s sail, solar sails in space would be propelled by photons from the sun pushing against a large surface area. The Society expects LightSail-2 to remain in orbit for at least a year. As the spacecraft’s apogee, or highest point slowly raises, its perigee, or closest point slowly lowers, eventually causing the sail to plummet into the atmosphere and burn up.

Click here for our coverage of the LightSail program.