List of Cube Sats - Earth Remote Sensing

Earth Remote Sensing

For more details on this topic, see Earth remote sensing.

• Quakesat, by Quakefinder: This satellite was set out on a mission to help scientists improve earthquake detection. The students are hoping that the detection of magnetic signals may have value in showing the onset of an earthquake. The company that put the satellites together is from Palo Alto, California. They're gathering data on the extremely low magnetic field fluctuations that are associated with earthquakes to help better understand this area of study that has its skeptics. The 30 June 2003 deployment of Quakesat was alongside other university CubeSats and one commercial CubeSat. The launch occurred on a Rockot rocket from Russia’s Plesetsk launch site.
• SwissCube, by École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne: This project has been selected to fly aboard a new expendable launch system being developed for Arianespace jointly by the Italian Space Agency and the European Space Agency. The rocket is called Vega, and takes its name from the star. The Swiss students will conduct experiments with the air glow phenomenon in the Earth's atmosphere. The satellite's downlink radio will transmit at 437 MHz; the uplink will be at 145 MHz.
• PLUME, by the University of Leicester: They plan to launch a CubeSat that will detect cosmic dust, and will be the first English CubeSat to be launched. The students began their project at the beginning of 2007 and if successful will have a method for scientists to look at the smallest ever dust particles from space.
• Firefly, by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and Siena College: Terrestrial gamma-ray flashes have been detected from the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory after its launch in 1991. Scientists have theories about their origins and this new CubeSat will have instruments that will observe both photons and electrons simultaneously. This, in turn, will allow scientists to better determine if lightning is the source of the gamma-ray bursts.