Revolutionary Cubesat ASTERIA Has Gone Silent After A Successful Mission

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NASA announced that it lost contact with the ASTERIA CubeSat on the 5th December of 2019. But we already know that it fulfilled its mission.

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Success In Failure

The goal of the interesting American mission ASTERIA (Arcsecond Space Telescope Enabling Research in Astrophysics) was to verify that even small satellites are capable of doing great things. And even though NASA officially announced that they lost contact with the tiny satellite on the 5th December of 2019. But we already know that ASTERIA fulfilled its mission more than successfully. It definitively proved that even miniature satellites can do worthwhile science in space.

Operators of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) that were in charge of the ASTERIA mission announced that they will keep on trying to re-establish a connection until March. But the scientists doubt that it will work. Either way, ASTERIA was supposed to work for just 90 days and was scheduled to end sometime in the first quarter of 2018 so it managed to go way over its predicted lifespan.

Small But Ingenious

ASTERIA is a CubeSat made from six connected CubeSat units making it about the size of a suitcase. It got into space onboard the Dragon spaceship that belongs to the company SpaceX that was carried to space by the Falcon rocket on the 14th August of 2018 during the supply mission CRS-12 alongside other cargo for the International Space Station (ISS). And on the 20th of November of 2017, the CubeSat was released into open space.

When it comes to the scientific mission ASTERIA tested the capabilities of a miniature satellite when it comes to searching for exoplanets by measuring the tiny changes in the brightness of individual stars. Such measurements are incredibly delicate and nobody knew for sure whether a CubeSat can do it well enough.

ASTERIA fully satisfied and even surpassed all primary mission goals. It was better than any previous small satellites that tried to do something similar. After it finished its primary mission it was used for scientific observations and testing of new technologies.

Distrusted Yet Successfull

The Astrophysical CubeSats were originally met with a lot of distrust at NASA. Because of their size were few people believed that they were capable of big things. Now it shows that sometimes they can even surpass larger satellites and NASA puts 5 million dollars into their development per year and currently there are 5 different astrophysical CubeSats in different stages of development at NASA.

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