Deep space represents a new and difficult operating environment, riddled with radiation, requiring the hardening of electronics to ensure continued reliability and long-term survival, and a whole new testing regime for candidate components.

In addition, many more flight opportunities are coming for European CubeSats, thanks in part to the new generation of micro-launchers supported through ESA’s Boost! programme, which should also offer access to more exotic orbits in turn, enabling novel mission possibilities – including the usage of swarms of CubeSats, the subject of a current Open Space Innovation Platform call for ideas.

The CubeSat Systems Unit’s next Technology CubeSat is scheduled to launch at the end of this summer, aboard ESA’s next Vega launcher: the PRETTY CubeSat being led for ESA by Beyond Gravity Austria will test a new way of utilising satnav signals to measure sea surface height through reflectometry techniques.