What Can You Do With a Cubesat?

By Nancy Atkinson - July 23, 2013 08:32 PM UTC | Missions

We've had several articles recently cubesats -- low-cost satellites that seem to be the wave of the future. As technology becomes miniaturized, this allows for inexpensive and quick-to-build satellites. Additionally, they can tag along on launches already scheduled for other things. All this enables students and smaller companies to send equipment and experiments into space.

But the people from

DIY Space Exploration

say don't let the small size of a cubesat fool you. The types of missions Cubesats can perform may surprise you and they're becoming the satellite of choice for anyone looking for a low cost quick response option.

If you visit the

DIY Space Exploration website

, they have tutorials on how you can put your own cubesat together, and lots of other information. They've also put together a great infograhic about what all you can do with a cubesat:

Courtesy of:

DIY Space Exploration

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Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com