Last month, the Keck Institute for Space Studies (KISS) at the California Institute of Technology released a report titled, “Small Satellites: A Revolution in Space Science,” which examines the sorts of missions types of missions that could be with rapidly evolving small satellites. The potential missions described in the report cover planetary science (moons, asteroids, etc.), astrophysics and heliophysics.
The planetary science missions include the use of mother ships that would deploy CubeSats and impactors to explore Jupiter’s moon Europa, tens of thousands of ChipSats to characterize Saturn’s rings, landing vehicles to explore asteroids, and small spacecraft that would map the moon’s interior and search for volatiles and organics.
The report says that a number of the missions are years away because new technologies for small satellites will need to be developed first. The document includes five recommendations for how NASA can go forward on developing the technologies and pursuing the missions.
NASA is already pursuing deep-space CubeSat missions, including a series that will be launched as secondary payloads in the first flight of the Space Launch System (SLS) in 2007. In May, the space agency also announced the selection of nine Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I awards to fund deep-space CubeSat technologies. NASA also has funded Draper Laboratory to develop a satellite to deploy ChipSats to explore surface of Europa.
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