M-Cubed is a

miniaturized satellite A small satellite, miniaturized satellite, or smallsat is a satellite of low mass and size, usually under . While all such satellites can be referred to as "small", different classifications are used to categorize them based on mass. Satellites c ...

built by students at the

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

in a joint project run by the Michigan Exploration Laboratory (MXL) and

Jet Propulsion Laboratory The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) in La Cañada Flintridge, California, Crescenta Valley, United States. Founded in 1936 by Cali ...

(JPL). It is an example of the popular

CubeSat A CubeSat is a class of small satellite with a form factor of cubes. CubeSats have a mass of no more than per unit,, url=https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5418c831e4b0fa4ecac1bacd/t/5f24997b6deea10cc52bb016/1596234122437/CDS+REV14+2020-07-3 ...

design for amateur satellites. It was launched from

Vandenberg Air Force Base Vandenberg may refer to: * Vandenberg (surname), including a list of people with the name * USNS ''General Hoyt S. Vandenberg'' (T-AGM-10), transport ship in the United States Navy, sank as an artificial reef in Key West, Florida * Vandenberg S ...

on 28 October 2011 atop a

Delta II Delta II was an expendable launch system, originally designed and built by McDonnell Douglas, and sometimes known as the Thorad Delta 1. Delta II was part of the Delta rocket family, derived directly from the Delta 3000, and entered service in ...

rocket. M-Cubed was launched as a secondary payload to the

Suomi NPP The Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP), previously known as the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project (NPP) and NPP-Bridge, is a weather satellite operated by the United State ...

satellite, along with AubieSat-1, DICE-1, DICE-2, Explorer-1 Prime and RAX-2. M-Cubed, short for Michigan Multipurpose Minisat, was designed as a technology demonstrator for a new

FPGA A field-programmable gate array (FPGA) is a type of configurable integrated circuit that can be repeatedly programmed after manufacturing. FPGAs are a subset of logic devices referred to as programmable logic devices (PLDs). They consist of a ...

-based image processing system intended for a future

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

mission, Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE), recommended by the

Earth Science Decadal Survey The ''Earth Science Decadal Survey'' (in full: ''U.S. National Academy of Sciences Decadal Survey for Earth Science and Applications from Space'') is a publication of the National Research Council (United States), United States National Research ...

. The mission was also intended to validate the

satellite bus A satellite bus (or spacecraft bus) is the main body and structural component of a satellite or spacecraft, in which the payload and all scientific instruments are held. Bus-derived satellites are less customized than specially-produced satelli ...

design for use in future CubeSat missions. The satellite uses a passive

magnetorquer A magnetorquer or magnetic torquer (also known as a torque rod) is a satellite system for Spacecraft attitude control, attitude control, detumbling, and stabilization built from electromagnetic coils. The magnetorquer creates a magnetic dipole that ...

for

attitude control Spacecraft attitude control is the process of controlling the orientation of a spacecraft (vehicle or satellite) with respect to an inertial frame of reference or another entity such as the celestial sphere, certain fields, and nearby objects, ...

, consisting of a large

permanent magnet A magnet is a material or object that produces a magnetic field. This magnetic field is invisible but is responsible for the most notable property of a magnet: a force that pulls on other ferromagnetic materials, such as iron, steel, nickel, c ...

that aligns the satellite with the

Earth's magnetic field Earth's magnetic field, also known as the geomagnetic field, is the magnetic field that extends from structure of Earth, Earth's interior out into space, where it interacts with the solar wind, a stream of charged particles emanating from ...

. On-board control is provided by a Taskit Stamp9G20

microcontroller A microcontroller (MC, uC, or μC) or microcontroller unit (MCU) is a small computer on a single integrated circuit. A microcontroller contains one or more CPUs (processor cores) along with memory and programmable input/output peripherals. Pro ...

running

RTLinux RTLinux is a hard realtime real-time operating system (RTOS) microkernel that runs the entire Linux operating system as a fully preemptive process. The hard real-time property makes it possible to control robots, data acquisition systems, man ...

. Following the launch, MXL was unable to command M-Cubed and observed anomalies in its transmitted data. MXL concluded that the M-Cubed CubeSat became magnetically conjoined to Explorer-1 rime a second CubeSat released at the same time, via both satellites' attitude control magnets. This is the first recorded instance of two satellites unintentionally and non-destructively latching together. As a result of this incident, M-Cubed was unable to complete its mission. The M-Cubed mission was successfully re-flown as MCubed-2, launched on 6 December 2013.

References

External links

*
AMSAT - Satellite Detail - MCubed
!--formerly a reference not mapped to a passage, orphaned after July 2014 major article revisions; template: wayback not suitable as the referenced URL yields a database error when used in querying - only accessible by direct linkage or navigation from amsat.org/amsat-new wayback archived page.--> {{Orbital launches in 2011 CubeSats Spacecraft launched in 2011 University of Michigan