October 27-29, 2000 - Klofas.com

CubeSat: The Next Generation of Educational Picosatellites
Prof. Jordi Puig-Suari, jpuigsua@calpoly.edu
California Polytechnic State University
San Luis Obispo, CA
Prof. Robert Twiggs KE6QMD, Bob.Twiggs@Stanford.edu
Stanford University
Stanford, CA
ABSTRACT
A picosatellite called CubeSat is now under development by more than 20 groups of amateur radio enthusiasts
and universities. This picosatellite that is a 4" cube and will weigh about lkg presents a real advantage for
interested space enthusiasts in that it is significantly less expensive to build than micro or nano satellites and
due to the small size and weight will be relatively inexpensive to launch into space. There is a technical
challenge of building a useful satellite this small, but also political challenge of providing the frequency
spectrum that would be required if hundreds of these CubeSats were launched using the amateur frequency
bands. This paper will describe the international program of developers, the launch opportunities available for
CubeSats, some of the issues with global operation of these satellites, some experiments planned for them and
some proposals for sharing amateur frequency bands for educational purposes.
1. Introduction
2. CubeSat Development Program
3. Participants in CubeSat Program
4. Launch Opportunities
5. Use of Amateur Frequency Considerations
6. Conclusions
7. Acknowledgements
8. References
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION
The current trend in satellites to do more for less cost has led to the "Smaller, Cheaper, Faster, Better" space
missions. It is generally resulting in many cases of doing things the same way as before in a somewhat smaller
fonnat for less cost, but this has been cited as the basis for some ofNASA's recent deep space mission failures.
To support some science missions and in proposing new missions, the trend is now to see what can be done by
decreasing the spacecraft sizes by orders of magnitude. This is becoming more practical with the rapid
advances in decreasing electronics size, in greatly increased capability and very low power consumption. This
decrease in size also directly benefits the mission cost in lower launch costs.
There are several programs now exploring micro, nano and pico satellite sizes. These sizes ranging from