Wiki explains a CubeSat is a cube roughly four inches on a side and have an internal volume of one quart. They are limited to 2.2 pounds in weight and generally are developed by universities rather than commercial companies. A starter kit is available from Pumpkin, which has a frame, microcontroller, and power supply. The size is standardized so they can be launched from a common deployment system.
NASA has an interesting website which presents an example CubeSat design. The satellites have different missions. For example, SwissCube monitors the photoluminescence of the atmosphere. It can photograph images with a resolution of 188 x 120 pixels. The solar cell array provides 1.5 W, and it also has two batteries.
GeneSat-1 was launched to serve the amateur radio community. It has a beacon at 437.075 MHz. BeeSat has GMSK downlink, with a 640 x 480 pixel camera. Its solar array produces 1.36 W, which is consumed by the 60 MHz ARM-7 processor.
NASA to launch CU Student's CubeSats on Glory Mission this fall tells that three satellites will be launched by NASA in late November. The three universities are: CU-Boulder, Montana State University, and Kentucky Space. The Glory Mission is a new launch that will observe the Earth's aerosols and solar irradiance.
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