14 DAY TRIAL // Officials with the American space agency announce the selection of 33 small satellite proposals, of the many more that were submitted under its CubeSat Launch Initiative. Two of the selected spacecraft belong to a team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology.
The JPL/Caltech team will launch two CubeSats as auxiliary payloads, NASA decided. The rockets that will carry these experiments are currently scheduled for liftoff in 2013 and 2014, respectively.
Most of the small satellites that will be launched under this Initiative will try to demonstrate new technologies, conduct educational research or perform science missions. Each spacecraft is a cube just 4 inches (10.2 centimeters) on one side, weighing less than 3 pounds (1.35 kilograms).
Proposals from various NASA research centers, the Department of Defense and many universities around the country were selected as part of the CSLI.