---
title: "SunCube FemtoSat Satellite Can Be Launched into Orbit for $3,000"
description: "For the price of a Vespa you can have your own tiny moon."
date: "2016-04-19"
modified: "2016-04-19"
authors:
  - name: "Jonathon Ramsey"
    link: "https://www.thedrive.com/authors/jonathon-ramsey"
url: "https://www.thedrive.com/tech/3067/suncube-femtosat-satellite-can-be-launched-into-orbit-for-3-000"
categories:
  - "News"
tags:
  - "space"
---

# SunCube FemtoSat Satellite Can Be Launched into Orbit for $3,000

![](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/images-by-url-td/content/archive-images/0419160-suncube-femtosat-satellite-hero.jpg>)
*\<em\>www.thedrive.com</em>*

In 1998 Stanford and California Poly worked some sorcery on space exploration, [introducing the CubeSat](<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50_AntgK8ZA>). About 11 centimeters per side and weighing 1.33 kilograms, it’s [a tiny solar-powered satellite](<https://www.space.com/308-cubesats-tiny-spacecraft-huge-payoffs.html>) launched as a secondary payload. For instance, when NASA launches one of its huge Voyager-looking spacecraft, the payload bay would contain a box called a P-POD, and inside that P-POD are three Cubesats. After the Voyager is ejected, the P-POD opens up and a spring – just like a jack-in-the-box – hurls three Cubesats into low-Earth orbit.

The witchery comes in the CubeSat being around $50,000 to build out of off-the-shelf parts, with design-to-launch capable in three years, and costing about $100,000 to launch into space. That’s not couch money, but every one of those specs is orders of magnitude less than the equivalent for a traditional satellite; launch fees alone run from $60,000 to $70,000 per kilogram. Everyone from universities [to NASA](<https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/heo/home/CubeSats_initiative>) to the US National Reconnaissance Office to private companies is building them to take pictures, test future technology, [land on asteroids](<https://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Engineering_Technology/Asteroid_Impact_Mission/CubeSat_companions_for_ESA_s_asteroid_mission>), or conduct biology experiments. They’ve been [called “The Model T of satellites,”](<https://www.nro.gov/about/innovation/2013-05.pdf>) 140 of them were [launched in 2014 alone](<https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/04/the-next-big-thing-in-space-may-be-really-really-small-satellites/>).

Professor Jekan Thangavelautham and two graduate students at Arizona State University’s Space and Terrestrial Robotic Exploration (SpaceTREx) Laboratory figured that if the CubeSat plays small ball, they could play smaller. [Enter the SunCube FemtoSat](<https://femtosat.asu.edu/suncube_femtosat_design_specifications_v1.pdf>), which is three centimeters per side and weighs 35 grams. One third the size and weight of a CubeSat, it diminishes every financial and time investment by more than an order of magnitude: the research team says a SunCube FemtoSat can be built in months for a couple hundred dollars, costs $1,000 to send to the International Space Station and $3,000 to put in low-Earth Orbit. The price could halve when reusable-first-stage rockets become the norm.

As CubeSats piggyback on a rocket payload, FemtoSats piggyback on CubeSats, designed so that nine fit inside a standard Cubesat in their own launcher called an F-POD. Once above Earth the CubeSat spring-launches its payload, the F-POD pops out and, also spring-powered, launches its payload of nine tiny electronic moons.

The low cost is enabled by off-the-shelf components – with great smartphones come great power – and DIY solutions like buying scrap solar panels at a discount and cutting them to FemtoSat size. The diminutive constraints mean limited electronics options, like UHF and S-band chipsets because there’s no X-band set small enough, but the team is working that out.

Thangavelautham and the two students happened upon the discovery while devising a solution to how to perform large satellite tasks with “[swarms of disposable craft](<https://asunow.asu.edu/20160406-creativity-asu-suncube-femtosat-space-exploration-for-everyone>).” They say that three interconnected FemtoSats can [be fitted with a propulsion system](<https://techcrunch.com/2016/04/07/student-designed-femtosats-aim-to-bring-cost-of-satellite-deployment-below-1000/>) and be used to haul a payload or scan spacecraft in orbit for damage. They want to get their first prototype into orbit in 2017, the ultimate goal being “[space for everybody](<https://www.techtimes.com/articles/148688/20160410/palm-sized-satellite-femtosats-aims-to-bring-down-cost-of-space-missions.htm>).” And depending on who you ask, that [could mean space junk for everybody](<https://news.discovery.com/space/cubesats-a-space-junk-hazard-140930.htm>), too.

https://player.vimeo.com/video/161656838

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