Select 2020 Year-to-Date NASA Small Spacecraft Stories
NASA CubeSat Mission to Gather Vital Space Weather Data
May 7, 2020 – NASA has selected a new pathfinding CubeSat mission to gather data not collected since the agency flew the Dynamics Explorer in the early 1980s.
NASA CubeSat Will Shine a Laser Light on the Moon’s Darkest Craters
April 27, 2020 – As astronauts explore the Moon during the Artemis program, they may need to make use of the resources that already exist on the lunar surface. Take water, for instance: Because it’s a heavy and therefore expensive resource to launch from Earth, our future explorers might have to seek out ice to mine. Once excavated, it can be melted and purified for drinking and used for rocket fuel. But how much water is there on the Moon, and where might we find it?
NASA Selects Mission to Study Causes of Giant Solar Particle Storms
March 30, 2020 – NASA has selected a new mission to study how the Sun generates and releases giant space weather storms – known as solar particle storms – into planetary space. Not only will such information improve understanding of how our solar system works, but it ultimately can help protect astronauts traveling to the Moon and Mars by providing better information on how the Sun’s radiation affects the space environment they must travel through.
NASA Selects Universities for Collaborative Development of Small Spacecraft Technologies
March 11, 2020 – Nine university teams will collaborate with NASA to advance small spacecraft technologies that will help pave the way for human and robotic lunar exploration. Under NASA’s Artemis program the agency plans to return humans to the Moon by 2024; small spacecraft, or “SmallSats,” will help blaze the trail.
NASA CubeSats Play Big Role in Lunar Exploration
February 25, 2020 – They might be small, but they’re also mighty. Very small and innovative spacecraft called CubeSats are poised to play a role in NASA’s Artemis program, which will return humans to the Moon by 2024.
NASA Awards Contract to Launch CubeSat to Moon from Virginia
February 14, 2020 – NASA has selected Rocket Lab of Huntington Beach, California, to provide launch services for the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) CubeSat.
NASA SBIR/STTR 2020 Solicitation Now Open!
February 6, 2020 – See Focus Area 21 Small Spacecraft Technologies for the list of relevant subtopics. Small spacecraft can accomplish commercial, science and exploration missions in unique and more affordable ways than can large conventional spacecraft.
Tiny Satellite for Studying Distant Planets Goes Quiet
January 3, 2020 – Mission operators at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, have lost contact with the ASTERIA satellite, a briefcase-sized spacecraft designed to study planets outside our solar system. The last successful communication with ASTERIA, short for Arcsecond Space Telescope Enabling Research in Astrophysics, was on Dec. 5; attempts to contact it are expected to continue into March 2020.
