‘CubeSat’
Vanderbilt’s silent CubeSat awakens 6 months after launch
Aug. 19, 2021—Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation, or AMSAT, volunteers have established communications with RadFxSat-2, a small CubeSat that had been silent since it deployed in a Virgin Orbit launch Jan. 17, 2021. That day, the California-based company successfully deployed 10 CubeSats selected by NASA as part of the agency’s CubeSat Launch Initiative. Nine them were designed, built...
Radiation experiment flies on record-setting SpaceX launch dedicated entirely to small satellites
Dec. 4, 2018— The record-setting SpaceX rocket launch yesterday carried a Vanderbilt space radiation experiment aboard CubeSat Fox-1Cliff. Actually, it’s a spare. The original payload is aboard CubeSat AO-85 , launched in 2015 and still in low-Earth orbit. After deployment, Fox1-Cliff received its official designation, AO-95. A third Vanderbilt payload has been up one year this month...
Vanderbilt CubeSat data collected by ham radio operators worldwide
Feb. 12, 2016—Building a program of reliable CubeSats; doing real science at a fraction of the cost A tiny space hitchhiker named AO-85 is talking and thousands of ham radio operators worldwide and a handful of Vanderbilt University engineering researchers with the special interest of proud parents are listening. AO-85’s transponder was turned on three days after...
Solar sail is secondary payload on 2018 Orion flight – NASA PI
Nov. 6, 2015—Instead of looking at space atmosphere as a toxic vacuum, look at it as an asset, said Les Johnson, who handed a silver 4-inch square of solar sail material as light as small bird’s feather to an audience member. As the piece of sail traveled through a standing-room-only crowd in Jacob’s Believed In Me Auditorium,...
NASA picks Vanderbilt CubeSat for future launch
Mar. 1, 2013—NASA has selected a miniature satellite designed by a team led by electrical engineering professor Robert Reed to fly as an auxiliary payload aboard rockets planned to launch in 2014, 2015 and 2016. The Vanderbilt project – RadFxSat (radiation effects satellite project) – is a partnership between the university’s Institute for Space and Defense Electronics...
Tiny ‘space hitchhiker’ to test radiation effects on electronics
Jun. 4, 2012—Smaller, lighter electronic components are more vulnerable to pesky cosmic ray particles Vanderbilt researchers are launching a miniature satellite into space in a quest to help future space missions better combat the harsh conditions of space, particularly radiation that can cause glitches or breakdowns in electronic components. Funded by NASA and the Department of Defense,...