SPACE/COSMOS
Student-built satellite will blast into space, collects data for NASA’s IMAP mission
CubeSat designed and built by undergraduates will study space weather
DURHAM, N.H.—(November 6, 2025)—A multidisciplinary team of undergraduate students from three different universities has designed and built a mini satellite, known as a CubeSat, that will launch into space to gather data in collaboration with NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) mission. The small-but-mighty satellite is set to launch on a SpaceX rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California no earlier than Nov. 10, 2025 at 10:19 a.m. PST. It will head to the outer reaches of the atmosphere to study the solar wind which will help scientists in their quest to improve space weather forecasting and better protect technology in space and on Earth— such as communication networks, power grids and GPS —from potentially damaging large solar flare events.
“This is an amazing opportunity for students to not only get hands-on technical experience but to also collaborate with other undergraduates across the country to design and build an entire space mission from the instrument to the software that will operate it in space and the antenna and radio to command the satellite once in space,” said Noé Lugaz, research professor in physics and astronomy at the University of New Hampshire. “The experience is invaluable and can open doors to future opportunities in space-related or other science and engineering careers.”
The team of 70 undergraduate students from the University of New Hampshire (UNH), Sonoma State University (SSU) and Howard University (HU) designed, developed and built the satellite which was named 3UCubed—reflecting the overall concept of uplifting undergraduate students to study upwelling, and giving a nod to the three participating universities.
Launched following its selection as part of NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative, the satellite will travel to the Earth’s upper atmosphere, known as thermosphere, which is the same region where many other satellites and the International Space Station orbit around Earth. It will take measurements of the atmosphere density (single oxygen at this altitude) and electron precipitation from space onto the upper atmosphere. Data from the mission will be collected by the students and analyzed in combination with data from IMAP and will help advance the understanding of how the thermosphere in the auroral and cusp regions responds to particle precipitation and varying conditions associated with solar wind.
CubeSats are a specific subset of satellites that are small and standardized and provide a cost-effective way to study space science. It is about the size of a loaf of bread and offers a simpler way to start building and operating than larger satellites, making it an ideal piece of equipment for students to hone their skills outside of the classroom.
The students worked for five years on the satellite, performing a variety of tasks ranging from creating the software code that controls the 3UCubed to soldering the wires during the physical build. Students with mentorship from professors and staff engineers, performed trade studies, orbit analyses, selected vendors for different subsystems, oversaw budgets for various mass, power, link and telemetry jobs and developed the framework for the flight software and operations.
“At the time, I had a keen interest for the aerospace industry and saw this as a great opportunity to get valuable experience working with industry professionals,” said Alex Chesley ’22, who studied mechanical engineering at UNH and was a part of the 3UCubed team. “It was fascinating to learn about so many new subjects about space science and instrumentation that I had never studied before.”
The hands-on experience is meant to introduce, inspire and prepare students for a successful career in a related field like space science, computer science, engineering or science education. Chesley designed the initial CAD model of the satellite and also helped create the detailed specification list for the CubeSat’s altitude control system. He now works as a configuration engineer at STS Aerospace in Laconia, N.H., where he helps develop fluid distribution systems for customers in the space, aeronautics and defense industries.
The 3UCubed satellite was fully assembled at UNH and the two payload instruments that are a part of its structure were built, tested and calibrated at UNH. Students from UNH took the lead in developing the instrument software and worked with students from SSU on the flight software. SSU oversaw the development of the software for the ground station and will serve as the primary ground station for the mission, which will collect the data from the satellite and will send commands to the spacecraft so it can adjust once it is in orbit. UNH worked with HU to build the back up ground station.
“The SSU CubeSat Project had a profound impact on my personal and professional growth,” said Haley Joerger ’24, who studied computer science at SSU. “The mentorship I received was instrumental in building my confidence and guiding my development. Working on the CubeSat hardware provided me with valuable experience in instrumentation, a skill that I now apply in my role as an application engineer at Keysight Technologies. I am also deeply grateful for the lifelong friendships I formed with my teammates—connections that continue to enrich my life to this day.”
Students from Sonoma State University have also engaged with their region’s amateur radio operators and Scout members to construct a ground station for them to communicate with the satellite.
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The University of New Hampshire inspires innovation and transforms lives in our state, nation and world. More than 15,000 students from 50 states and 87 countries engage with an award-winning faculty in top-ranked programs in business, engineering, law, health and human services, liberal arts and the sciences across more than 200 programs of study. A Carnegie Classification R1 institution, UNH partners with NASA, NOAA, NSF, and NIH, and received over $250 million in competitive external funding in FY24 to further explore and define the frontiers of land, sea and space.
PHOTOS FOR DOWNLOAD
Link: https://www.unh.edu/unhtoday/sites/default/files/3ucubed_rendering_in_space.jpg
Caption: Rendering of CubeSat orbiting Earth.
Photo credit: UNH
Link: https://www.unh.edu/unhtoday/sites/default/files/3ucubedteam_credit_nasa_3ucubed.jpeg
Caption: Some of the 3UCubed mission team—including students, faculty and staff from the University of New Hampshire, Sonoma State University and Howard University—presenting at the American Geophysical Union annual meeting.
Photo credit: NASA 3UCubed
Link: https://www.unh.edu/unhtoday/sites/default/files/20250725_165604780_ios_copy.jpg
Caption: Anthony Santo ’25, who majored in Computer Science at UNH, tested software for the 3UCubed mission’s CubeSat. He wrote code for the Instrument’s data collection and ground station operations.
Photo credit: UNH
Link: https://www.unh.edu/unhtoday/sites/default/files/img_2164.jpeg
Caption: Sanjeev Mehta, a UNH research project engineer for the 3UCubed mission, inspects the CubeSat during the integration at Maverick Space Systems lab in San Luis Obispo, CA.
Photo credit: UNH
Austrian satellite mission PRETTY continues under the leadership of Graz University of Technology
The Austrian Space Agency and the European Space Agency (ESA) have approved the mission's continuation. In future, the CubeSat PRETTY will operate as part of the OPS-SAT Space Lab. The project management will be transferred to TU Graz.
Graz University of Technology
image:
OPS-SAT PRETTY in the clean room at TU Graz before its launch in 2023.
view moreCredit: Lunghammer - TU Graz
For over two years, the Austrian mini-satellite PRETTY has orbited the Earth at an altitude of just over 500 kilometres in a sun-synchronous polar orbit. Following the commissioning phase at the end of 2023, it provided continuous data on changes in polar ice and sea levels, as well as the effects of space weather on a satellite’s lifespan. Although the mission was originally planned to last one year, it is now certain that the mission of the satellite (jointly developed by TU Graz, Beyond Gravity Austria, and Seibersdorf Laboratories) will continue in a new form under the name OPS-SAT PRETTY. This has been confirmed by the Austrian Space Agency (ALR) of the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) and the European Space Agency (ESA). “The PRETTY mission has been highly successful so far, which is why we at the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG), and ESA have agreed to extend the mission until December 2026, providing the necessary budget funds totalling 365,000 euros,” says FFG Managing Director Karin Tausz. As part of the extension, project management will transfer from Beyond Gravity, Austria's largest aerospace supplier, to Graz University of Technology (TU Graz), which operates the PRETTY ground station at Campus Inffeldgasse.
The new task is to act as a flying laboratory
In future, the satellite renamed to OPS-SAT PRETTY will function as an experimental platform as part of the OPS-SAT Space Lab (https://opssat.esa.int/). This was already the case for OPS-SAT, also built at TU Graz. After a successful four-and-a-half-year mission, OPS-SAT burnt up on entering the Earth's atmosphere in May 2024. It successfully demonstrated the advantages of such experimental platforms for ESA. These platforms enable organisations, companies, and private individuals to conduct software and firmware experiments during active operations, which would not be possible with other missions. OPS-SAT PRETTY is also equipped with various subsystems, offering Austrian and international parties interested in space research a flexible, freely configurable platform for their ideas and experiments.
“Although the original PRETTY mission was designed to last just one year, we are delighted that our satellite can now continue to provide valuable services,” says Project Manager Manuela Wenger from the Institute of Communication Networks and Satellite Communications at TU Graz. “Of course, we are also quite proud of the fact that PRETTY has proven to be very reliable after OPS-SAT and TUGSAT-1, the first Austrian satellite in space, which we also built at TU Graz.” Manuela Wenger is joined in the project team at TU Graz by Andreas Hörmer and Maximilian Henkel.
Scientific data from PRETTY is sent from Graz to the rest of the world
PRETTY has mastered its original scientific mission with flying colours. “We tested a brand new technology in space for the first time and proved that important climate data can be obtained with a mini-satellite the size of a shoebox, which would otherwise require a much larger and more expensive satellite,” says Andreas Dielacher, the responsible systems engineer at Beyond Gravity. “We have developed important expertise in the payload area, the centrepiece of a satellite.” This new technology is a passive reflectometer developed by Beyond Gravity, which measures signals reflected by ice, water, and land masses from European and American navigation satellites. Climate scientists can use this information to draw conclusions about environmental data. Andreas Dielacher continues: “The data from our reflectometer was sent directly to us from the ground station at TU Graz and then passed on to the scientists.” TU Graz developed the necessary hardware platform on the satellite.
Also on board of PRETTY is the SATDOS dosimeter, which was developed by Seibersdorf Laboratories and measures exposure to space radiation and its effects on the satellite's electronic components. “Thanks to SATDOS, we were able to collect detailed radiation data directly from PRETTY's orbit for the first time,” explains Christoph Tscherne, radiation resistance expert and project manager at Seibersdorf Laboratories. “Our results show that radiation exposure in space can have a significant impact on satellite electronics. Commercially available standard components, which are increasingly being used in spaceflight, are particularly vulnerable.”
Information on OPS-SAT PRETTY on the ESA website:
https://opssat.esa.int/pretty/
Method of Research
News article
OPS-SAT PRETTY in the clean room at TU Graz before its launch in 2023.
Project Manager Manuela Wenger from the Institute of Communication Networks and Satellite Communications at TU Graz.
Credit
Lunghammer - TU Graz
Lunghammer - TU Graz
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