Astronomy Cast · Fraser Cain and Dr. Pamela Gay

Astronomy Cast Ep. 757: CubeSats

May 26, 2025·33 min·3 clips

CubeSats get 'yeeted' off the ISS, sometimes colliding and tumbling wildly before stabilizing.

CubeSats start small. The episode frames them as compact spacecraft with a very crowded to-do list: carry useful instruments, find enough power, aim an antenna, move data, and still fit inside the launch package. That sounds manageable until the data problem arrives. A 4K camera shooting beautiful Earth video at 60 frames a second is only useful if the satellite can send the footage home. Bigger units buy a little breathing room. More spacecraft volume can mean more power and stronger antennas, which matters when a mission is trying to talk across multiple astronomical units. Space still refuses to be tidy. Pamela talks about inflatable antenna dishes being developed at the Jet Propulsion Lab, with a quick nervous aside about hoping the project survives. The comparison works because it is so plain: a space version of boosting home Wi-Fi with a Pringles can, except the dish has to fold for launch and open later. Fraser also points to satellite mega constellations like Starlink and Kuiper as possible relay networks for small spacecraft data. That would make CubeSats less alone. A mission might eventually pay to pass data through existing satellites instead of solving the whole communications problem by itself. Power brings another squeeze. Solar panels and batteries are the normal answer, but they still have to fit into a tiny shape before launch. Origami becomes hardware. The same fold-and-deploy trick applies to solar panels, sails, and antennas when small spacecraft need big surfaces in orbit. The hosts keep it brisk and concrete: squiggly antennas, inflatable dishes, and tiny machines trying to phone home. Even the opening banter fits, moving from tornado warnings, weak power, poison ivy, and spring weirdness into the practical question of how these little missions work.

As heard by us

A clear, practical look at CubeSats as a tight engineering problem with some odd and clever hardware to match.

The piece treats CubeSats as an engineering puzzle first, which fits the subject well. It keeps the attention on the cramped tradeoffs: power, antennas, science payloads, and the odd challenge of packing a satellite into a stack of 10 centimeter cubes.

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Why you'd press play

You want the tiny-satellite puzzle explained without getting buried in acronyms.

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