The payloads inside Cygnus include several CubeSats, which are miniature spacecraft that fill a standardized frame about 4-inches by 4-inches by 4-inches. The satellites are developed at a much lower cost than full-size spacecraft and allow innovations on several levels along with granting opportunities for practical, hands-on experience for students and others.
Deploying from the space station, the CubeSats will conduct independent, focused missions ranging from technological confirmation to relaying data from space to teams waiting anxiously on Earth. Among those teams is a group of students and teachers from St. Thomas More Cathedral School. With this launch, the group will become the first elementary school to put a CubeSat into orbit. The school worked with NASA’s ELaNa project, part of the agency’s Launch Services Program based here at Kennedy, to build and launch the STMSat-1. Read the details at www.nasa.gov/feature/elana-IX.