Today, NASA launched four student-built satellites into a low-Earth orbit. The satellites, launched from California, are a part of NASA’s Educational Launch of Nanosatellite mission.
While it may take several days for official confirmation, NASA reports that so far the satellites seem to be doing well. The satellites
One of NASA’s cube satellites. Photo from NASA.
are
cubes approximately 4 inches across and are said to weigh less than three pounds.
The program was started in 2010 and has since launched over 90 satellites from educational and governmental facilities in the United States.
Jason Crusan, director of NASA’s Advanced Exploration Systems Division, which oversees the CubeSat Launch Initiative said “With each successful mission, we are demonstrating that frequent access to space provides a great opportunity for NASA to gain engineering results at a low cost while affording students real-world exposure to spaceflight.”
