Small Satellite Missions

Auroras
CubeSats
EZIE (Electrojet Zeeman Imaging Explorer)
Goddard Space Flight Center
Heliophysics
Heliophysics Division
Missions
Small Satellite Missions
The Sun
Under the nighttime California sky, NASA’s EZIE (Electrojet Zeeman Imaging Explorer) mission launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 11:43 p.m. PDT on March 14.
Posted March 15, 2025
Auroras
EZIE (Electrojet Zeeman Imaging Explorer)
Goddard Space Flight Center
Heliophysics
Missions
Small Satellite Missions
The Sun
High above Earth’s poles, intense electrical currents called electrojets flow through the upper atmosphere when auroras glow in the sky. These auroral electrojets push about a million amps of electrical charge around the poles every second.
Posted February 25, 2025
Ames Research Center
CubeSats
Science Instruments
Small Satellite Missions
Technology for Living in Space
Editor’s Note: This article was updated Nov. 20, 2024 shortly after BioSentinel’s mission marked two years of operation in deep space. Astronauts live in a pretty extreme environment aboard the International Space Station.
Posted November 20, 2024
General
Ames Research Center
CubeSats
Marshall Space Flight Center
Small Satellite Missions
Small Spacecraft Technology Program
Space Technology Mission Directorate
NASA recently evaluated initial flight data and imagery from Pathfinder Technology Demonstrator-4 (PTD-4), confirming proper checkout of the spacecraft’s systems including its on-board electronics as well as the payload’s support systems such as the small onboard camera.
Posted October 23, 2024
General
Ames Research Center
Ames Research Center's Science Directorate
Ames Space Biosciences
CubeSats
NASA Centers & Facilities
Science & Research
Small Satellite Missions
In May 2024, a geomagnetic storm hit Earth, sending auroras across the planet’s skies in a once-in-a-generation light display. These dazzling sights are possible because of the interaction of coronal mass ejections – explosions of plasma and magnetic field from the Sun – with Earth’s magnetic field, which protects us from the radiation the Sun […]
Posted September 26, 2024
Ames Research Center
Small Business Innovation Research / Small Business
Small Satellite Missions
Small Spacecraft Technology Program
Space Sustainability
Space Technology Mission Directorate
NASA is advancing an innovative approach to enabling commercial inspection of defunct, or inoperable, satellites in low Earth orbit, a precursor to capturing and repairing or removing the satellites.
Posted September 25, 2024
Space Communications & Navigation Program
Ames Research Center
Communicating and Navigating with Missions
Goddard Space Flight Center
Small Satellite Missions
Space Communications Technology
Technology Demonstration
NASA’s TBIRD (TeraByte InfraRed Delivery) demonstration and its host spacecraft — the PTD-3 (Pathfinder Technology Demonstrator-3) — have completed their technology demonstration. The TBIRD payload spent the past two years breaking world records for the fastest satellite downlink from space using laser communications.
Posted September 25, 2024
Astrophysics
BurstCube
CubeSats
Gamma Rays
Gamma-Ray Bursts
Goddard Space Flight Center
ISS Research
Small Satellite Missions
The Universe
The shoebox-sized BurstCube satellite has observed its first gamma-ray burst, the most powerful kind of explosion in the universe, according to a recent analysis of observations collected over the last several months.
Posted September 3, 2024
Ames Research Center
CubeSats
Launch Services Program
Marshall Space Flight Center
Missions
NASA Centers & Facilities
Small Satellite Missions
A pair of CubeSats from NASA’s Pathfinder Technology Demonstrator, or PTD, series lifted off on SpaceX’s Transporter-11 rideshare mission at 11:56 a.m. PDT Friday, August 16, from Vandenburg Space Force Base in California.
Posted August 19, 2024
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