The University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics is primed for Monday’s scheduled launch of two of its miniature satellites on a mission to collect data on the physics of the sun and its impact on Earth.
The two LASP missions are known as the Miniature X-ray Solar Spectrometer-2 (MinXSS-2) and the Compact Spectral Irradiance Monitor (CSIM).
Both are part of the payload for the Monday launch of Spaceflight’s SSO-A SmallSat Express mission, onboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket set to be launched at 11:30 a.m. MST from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
Monday’s mission launch highlights CU’s growing prominence in deploying CubeSats, as they are known, for scientific research. Tom Woods, associate director of LASP, said that as opportunities increase to launch spacecraft from commercial missions like SSO-A, small satellites will become even more popular tools for scientists.
“The time is right to do more and more science with these small satellites,” Woods, the associate director for technical divisions at LASP, said in a statement.
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