14 DAY TRIAL // Two cubesat-class satellites were released from the International Space Station (ISS) today, February 11, 2014, by Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Koichi Wakata. The tiny vehicles were sent into space from a Japanese-built research module on the space lab, called Kibo.
All space agencies involved in the ISS project – NASA, CSA, RosCosmos, JAXA and ESA – want to make launching cubesats a common occurrence on the orbital platform. These small vehicles can be launched in swarms, providing capabilities that are simply impossible with larger spacecraft.
The two satellites launched today were developed by a company called Planet Labs, and are part of the latter's Flock-1 constellation. This is a large formation of 28 cubesats, which will conduct Earth observations from low-Earth orbit. What they lack in individual resolution, they make up for in numbers, Space News reports.
Officials with Planet Labs say that the rest of the constellation may be deployed within a matter of weeks. The satellites were delivered to space aboard the unmanned Cygnus space capsule, which was developed and built by Orbital Science Corporation, under a NASA contract.