NASA launches science microsats

The STS5 mission, using a constellation of three 25-kg microsatellites, is NASA's latest successful science launch. The satellites will provide new knowledge of the Earth's magentic field. For some science missions, multiple small satellites are better than a single large one, since they can take measurements from (in this case) three orbits simultaneously. As NASA's science budget gets squeezed (see previous posts), there will no doubt be more interest in the use of small, relatively inexpensive satellites or groups of satellites for science missions.

NOTE: By a happy coincidence, the author just received word that a paper on this topic has been accepted for the AIAA/USU Conference on Small Satellites (www.smallsat.org). "Microspacecraft and the Vision for Space Exploration," by Matt Bille and Kris Winkler, will be presented at the August 2006 conference in Utah.