There might come a time when my palms don't get sweaty in the countdown to launching one of our satellites, but who am I kidding? I won't hold my breath. I'll always be a little nervous and excited at launch - and deployment in space - because we put so much effort...
Recently we started building out our solar panels for the Serenity CubeSat, a project we have been working on with Teachers in Space. The process we used to build them is featured the two videos below. There were problems but we have figured them out and are moving...
We have finally installed a vacuum chamber that can drop the pressure to 2,500 mTorr (we can go to 500 mTorr) if we need it. That pressure is pretty close to what Discovery will experience in space. I ran the first test with the Engineering model for over six hours....
Today, I will be going wheels up bound for Glosgow, Scotland. The 3rd PocketQube workshop is starting on Thursday and I am planning to give a talk on the progress we have had here. A few more milestones, some testing and then we integrate into the AlbaPod bound for...
It took a couple of modifications but the cleanroom has achieved operational status. In order to qualify, we need to have less than 352,000 particles larger than 0.5 microns. We also must have less than 2,930 particles larger than 5 microns. Those numbers are per...
Fifty years ago, I was recovering from staying up late to watch Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin perform their EVA on the Moon. It was amazing to watch on our new 25 inch color television, even if the images coming from the Moon were in black and white. The world...
My friend Joel Jackel came down from new York with his Mark Watney costume. It took him a year to make it. We found a good location to take some shots and then with a little bit of editing, made it look like Mars. It was a fun photo shoot. Going to send this image on...
One of the tenants we have here at Mini-Cubes is one that we have followed for years. Make space available to everyone. Sometimes that means we get to launch something really incredible. We will be launching a copy of Svetoslav Alexandrov’s book, I, Virtual Astronaut....
This morning Blue Origin successfully flew their 11th space mission. The spacecraft zoomed to over 346,000 feet in a picture perfect launch. It was incredible to watch. For Mini-Cubes this has been a good day. One of the experiments onboard proved out some design...