In the beginning, the CubeSat project was a loose collaboration of universities proving thatstudents could build and launch satellites. Building the entire spacecraft on a shoestring budget,these universities partnered with local radio amateurs and used amateur radio frequencies todownlink the small amount of housekeeping data generated.As the CubeSat project enters its second decade, several large government agencies havestarted funding CubeSat projects for various missions, in such areas as space weather, imaging,defense, communications, and education. It violates the intent of the Amateur service, andmay violate NTIA rules, for government-funded CubeSats to use amateur radio frequencies forcommunications.The National Science Foundation (NSF) has been funding space weather CubeSat projectsfor several years, and is using its Electromagnetic Spectrum Management group to find short-and long-term solutions to these issues. This paper describes the current NSF CubeSats andefiorts to transition away from amateur radio frequencies.
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