8 April 2025
Dear Colleagues,
At this year’s summer meeting in Anchorage, AK, we are organizing a special session titled: “From CubeSats to SmallSats — Big Science with Small Budgets in Astrophysics”
The 90 minute Special Session will consist of a handful of invited talks and a panel discussion, followed by a special iPoster session. The list of invited speakers is being finalized in the next few days, and will be announced soon.
The session description is below, but we invite you to submit contributed presentations to the iPoster session by April 10 (regular deadline).
The example presentation topics are:
The proliferation of the standardized CubeSat form-factor over the past decade has dramatically decreased the cost of access to space for educational, scientific, and commercial ventures. At the same time, miniaturized commercial-off-the-shelf components enabled a wide range of ambitious missions, especially in Earth Science, Space Physics, and Heliophysics. Although several innovative Astrophysics CubeSats have launched, with more in development, astrophysics research faces unique challenges. The extreme distance of astrophysical objects places stricter requirements for pointing stability and collecting aperture than is generally required in other fields. Nevertheless, the Astrophysics CubeSat program is a fertile ground for compelling science, technology maturation, and the training of early career researchers.
One of the key benefits of CubeSat missions has been the collective expertise gained by scientists and engineers across many institutions, which may have previously only been possessed by a select few at NASA centers or large aerospace contractors. Emboldened by this basic "space mission" literacy and ever-decreasing launch costs, astrophysicists are turning their attention to larger projects enabled by the ESPA and ESPA Grande "class" of spacecraft. The extra volume, weight, and power provided by the ESPA SmallSat formfactor allow for much more ambitious science missions and instrumentation and pathways to improve on the pointing stability and aperture constraints of CubeSats. This new form-factor allows capabilities that approach those of the Small Explorer mission class, at 1/10th of the cost. This also paves the way for projects funded by consortia, as an alternative to NASA-funded programs.
In this Special Session, we will provide an overview of the current SmallSat efforts in Astrophysics, including APRA CubeSats and Pioneers (with a focus on lessons learned) and discuss future prospects, including unmet technological needs. The Special Session will consist of 10 minute invited talks, a panel discussion, and a iPoster session. The invited speakers and panel members will include astrophysicists from academia and program officers from the Small Satellite and Special Projects Office at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
Dmitry Vorobiev
Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics