14 DAY TRIAL // Officials with the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California announce that two new cubesats have been launched into low-Earth orbit on Thursday, December 5. They are called the Intelligent Payload Experiment (IPEX) and Michigan Multipurpose Mini-satellite/CubeSat On-board processing Validation Experiment ( M-Cubed/COVE).
The spacecraft were launched alongside the NROL-39 GEMSat mission, which blasted off into space from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, atop an Atlas V heavy-lift delivery system built by the United Launch Alliance. Liftoff occurred at 11:14 pm PST (0714 GMT December 6).
IPEX was developed by JPL and the California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, and its purpose is to test new algorithms and software for faster image data transmissions to Earth. The technology it carries will enable future Earth-observing missions to detect natural disasters faster.
Its companion, M-Cubed/COVE, was developed as an Earth imager by JPL and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The technology it is trying to demonstrate will enable future spacecraft to characterize properties of aerosols and clouds in Earth's atmosphere faster than it is possible today.