Small mission accomplished by students—Big impact on space weather research

摘要

The Colorado Student Space Weather Experiment (CSSWE: http://lasp.colorado.edu/home/csswe/) is a three-unit (10 cm x 10 cm x 30 cm) CubeSat mission funded by the National Science Foundation, launched into a low-altitude, high-inclination orbit on 13 September 2012 as a secondary payload under NASA's Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa) program. The ground station at the University of Colorado at Boulder (also designed and built by students) was able to find, track, and receive beacon packets during the CubeSaf's first pass over Boulder. On 4 October 2012, the commissioning phase was completed and the science instrument, which measures energetic electrons and protons, was turned on.