Saturday, July 13, 2013

These Cubesats Could Use Plasma Thrusters to Leave Our Solar System




Before It's News | Popular Space





These Cubesats Could Use Plasma Thrusters to Leave Our Solar System



Artist concept of a 5 kg CubeSat with CubeSat Ambipolar Thruster (CAT) firing in low Earth orbit. Via Kickstarter.
Cubesats are all the rage these days: they’re usually inexpensive and quick to build and they can tag along on launches already scheduled for other things. We think of cubesats as being almost “disposable” satellites – tiny spacecraft that go into Earth orbit for a short time, do their science and then burn up harmlessly in Earth’s atmosphere. But a team of scientists have a more long-term, long-distance plan for their cubesats.






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