
CubeSats drive commercial space race – an annotated infographic
CubeSats are ultra-small spacecraft weighing 1.3kg or less. Most CubeSats piggyback to orbit on big, expensive rockets – but affordable rocket technology is launching a new generation of space start-ups. In the past satellites have been built and launched by multibillion-dollar companies like Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Orbital Sciences Corporation. That began to change in January 2014 when Orbital’s Cygnus spacecraft carried 33 nanosatellites to the International Space Station, ISS. These tiny satellites, built to the CubeSat standard format — a 10cm cube weighing 1.3kg or less — were launched from the ISS a month later. Since 2014 more than … Continue reading CubeSats drive commercial space race – an annotated infographic