In 1999, California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) and Stanford University proposed designing, building, and operating standardized miniature satellites they called CubeSats as an educational tool for teaching students about spacecraft hardware, electronics, programming, and operation.  The basic 1U CubeSat is 10 cm on a side, while a 3U CubeSat is 10x10x30 cm.  This standardization not only allowed multiple CubeSats to be deployed from spring-loaded boxes as excess cargo, but encouraged the development and manufacture of miniature power, communications, computer, and orientation modules that fit together in a CubeSat.

Originally, most CubeSats were designed by students and faculty, but commercially designed and operated CubeSats are now in the majority, such as the many downward-pointing 3U telescopes built and operated by PLANET, a Silicon Valley tech startup. It’s not hard to envision many upward-pointing CubeSat telescopes designed, built, and utilized by students and faculty for astronomical research. A few have already been launched, and, as suggested by Arizona State University astronomer Evgenya Shkolnik by the title of her recent paper (attached), we are “On the verge of an astronomy CubeSat revolution.”

Each year, for the past 15 years, Cal Poly has hosted the CubeSat Developer’s Workshop, and this year (2019) it will be immediately followed, by a modest, one-day CubeSat Astronomy Workshop. All are welcome. You can register via the website of the Institute for Student Astronomical Research, www.in4star.org/cubesat-astronomy. Alternatively, you can register at the Cal Poly CubeSat Developer’s Workshop website,  www.cubesat.org/workshop-information. Scroll down near the bottom.

Contacts  

Workshop Chair: Charles VanSteenwyk, cvanstee2@gmail.com, 805.503.5087

Workshop Co-Chair: Russell Genet, russmgenet@aol.com, 805.438.3305.