New Space and Tech

University of Michigan Launches M-CUBED and RAX

By Keith Cowing

April 8, 2013

Filed under Amateur Radio, cubesat, CubeSats, M-cubed, Michigan, NASA Hack Space, Payload Integration, RAX, Seconday Payloads, Smallsats, Students

Radio Aurora Explorer (RAX): “RAX is a joint venture between the University of Michigan and SRI International. Its primary mission objective is to study large plasma formations in the ionosphere, the highest region of our atmosphere. These plasma instabilities are known to spawn magnetic field-aligned irregularities (FAI), or dense plasma clouds known to disrupt communication between Earth and orbiting spacecraft.” Twitter: @RAX_2010 Facebook RAX

Michigan Multipurpose Minisat (M-Cubed): “The objective of MCubed is to obtain a mid resolution image to date of Earth with at least 60% land mass and a maximum of 20% cloud coverage from a single cubesat platform. S3FL is also developing the MCubed bus with the intention of making it a heritage design, thus allowing for future missions to be flown on the same bus.” Twitter: @UMCubed Tumblr: M-Cubed