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CubeSats Fly for the First Time on a Rocket Built for Them

NASA’s new found appeal for having private companies transport stuff to space surfaced again on Sunday, when the space agency used a Rocket Lab Electron rocket to launch a series of CubeSat satellites into orbit.
Rocket Lab Electron taking off from the Mahia Peninsula 1 photo
Photo: Trevor Mahlmann/Rocket Lab
This was the first time the CubeSats have had their very own, dedicated rocket leave a launch pad to carry them to space.

An undisclosed number of such small machines were sent to space over the weekend, including ten that are to be used for technology development and student involvement.

NASA launched the CubeSats from Rocket Lab’s launch complex on the Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand. The company is one of those selected by the Americans in 2015 as part of the VCLS Award specifically to launch small satellites and science missions into orbit.

“With the VCLS effort, NASA has successfully advanced the commercial launch service choices for smaller payloads, providing viable dedicated small launch options as an alternative to the rideshare approach,” said in a statement Jim Norman, director of Launch Services at NASA.

“This first mission is opening the door for future launch options.”

CubeSats are small-sized satellites that have virtually endless applications. They started life as a tool for NASA to teach engineering students how to build spacecraft but quickly grew to become assistance tools for the various current and future missions.

These satellites are usually meant to operate at altitudes below 497 miles (800 kilometers), but two of them made history earlier in November in the vicinity of planet Mars.

The two, nicknamed Eva and Wall-e, have accompanied NASA’s InSight mission to the Red planet, tracking the mothership's progress, taking photos and documenting ints entry into the Martian atmosphere.

Plans are that in the not so distant future CubeSats will be used to assist the building of NASA’s Moon-orbiting station and other high-profile projects.

The list of satellites launched on Sunday, together with the info on their roles made available by NASA, can be found in the document attached below.
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About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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