We know very little about our atmosphere’s outermost layer, but that is about to change as Engineers are working towards launching 50 mini-satellites to study it.

Engineers from 28 countries, including Europe, Japan, the US, and Australia are working on an international project called QB-50. This will see 50 CubeSats (tiny satellites measuring 10cm on each side, and weighing only 1kg each) launched from the International Space Station (ISS) to study Earths thermosphere.

The thermosphere is crucial to us as we rely on it to protect us from cosmic radiation. It exists between 200-380kms above Earth’s surface. The CubeSats will feed back data on how it functions. Once launched from ISS 380km orbit they will drift down the lower regions of the thermosphere

Andrew Dempster, part of the University of New South Wales (UNSW) team explains the thermosphere “is a region poorly understood and hard to measure. And yet, it’s the interface between our planet and space[.] It’s where much of the ultraviolet and X-ray radiation from the Sun collides with Earth, and generates auroras and potential hazards that can affect power grids and communications”

The UNSW team will produce two CubeSats; UNSW-Ec0, INSPIRE-2w. These will study the atomic composition of the thermosphere. A wider joint project between University of Sydney, UNSW, and the Australian National University called INSPIRE-2 will measure the electron temperature and density of plasma in the region.

A render of how the CubeSats will look

As CubeSats are so small they are a lot cheaper to launch than large satellites. This means researchers are able to get a lot more data for their money. However, each satellite will still cost around $750,000 USD to produce.

The launch date is now set for December. The satellites will be sent to ISS on an Orbital ATK Antares rocket from Wallops Island, Virginia then deployed over the next month.

Interested in finding out more about CubeSats?

CubeSats, the type of miniaturised satellite that will be used for this study could revolutionise space science due to their low cost and (comparatively) easy production using off-the-shelf components. Find out more about them in this video by NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory – Published Dec 2015

A full list of all 50 CubeSats and their institutions is below. More information of Frequencies can be found @ne.jp

Satellite Country Supporting Organisation 14-BISAT Brasil Instituto Federal Fluminense Aalto 2 Finland Aalto University ANUSAT 2 India Anna University Aoxiang 1 China Shaanxi Engineering Laboratory for Microsatellites BeEagleSat Turkey Istanbul Technical University BUSAT 1 China School of Astronautics – Beihang University DelFFi-Delta/Phi Netherlands Delft University of Technology DeltaDsat UK Cranfield University DragSail-CubeSat Germany FH Aachen University of Applied Sciences DUTHSAT Greece Democritus University of Thrace EntrySat France ISAE Institut Superieur de l’Aeronautique et de l’Espace ExAlta 1 Canada University of Alberta GAMASAT Portugal Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto HAVELSAT Turkey Havelsan & Istanbul Technical University Hoopoe Israel Herzliya Science Center i-INSPIRE II Australia University of Sydney InflateSail UK Surrey Space Centre KPI-SAU 1 Ukraine National Technical University of Ukraine – Kiev Polytechnic Institute LilacSat 1 China Harbin Institute of Technology LINK Korea Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology LituanicaSAT 2 Lithuania NPO Innovative Engineering Projects Nano-JASMINE Japan University of Tokyo NJUST 1 China Nanjing University of Science and Technology NUDTSat China National University of Defense Technology OGMS-SA France Universite Paris-Est Creteil Pegasus Germany Fachhochschule Wiener Neustadt PHOENIX Taiwan National Cheng Kung University PICASSO Belgium Belgian Institute of Space Aeronomy QARMAN Belgium Von Karmin Institute for Fluid Dynamics QB-Colombia Colombia Universidad Distrital Francisco Jose de Caldas QBITO Spain Universidad Politecnica de Madrid QBUS 1 USA University of Colorado Boulder QBUS 2 USA University of Michigan QBUS 3 USA Stanford University QBUS 4 USA Universidad del Turabo RIOSAT Austria Graz University of Technology RoBiSAT 1/2 Romania Institute of Space Science SamSat Russia Samara State Aerospace University SAT_IP2 France INSSET Institut superieur des sciences et techniques SIMBA Belgium Royal Meteorological Institute SNUSAT 1 South Korea Seoul National University SOMP2 Germany DresdenTechnische University SpaceCube France Mines Paristech STU 1 China ShanghaiTech University SUSat Australia University of Adelaide UCLSat UK MSSL University College London UNSW-EC0 Australia University of New South Wales UPSat Greece University of Patras URSA MAJOR Italy University of Rome VZLUsat 1 Tschechien Aerospace Research and Test Establishment X-CubeSat France Ecole Polytechnique YUsend-QB50 Kanada York University Toronto ZA-AeroSat South Africa Stellenbosch University ZJU CubeSat China Zhejiang-Universitat