# An Overview of CubeSat Missions and Applications
## 7 CubeSats as Deep-Space Exploration Platforms
### The Role of CubeSats in Lunar Exploration Missions
More specifically, in the case of the LunaH-Map, a stuck valve led to the inability to perform the intended maneuvers, while in the case of OMOTENASHI, a propellant leak due to a faulty valve led to excessive tumbling and loss of attitude control. Furthermore, other reasons could be identified as potential culprits for some of these anomalies and failures. Firstly, up until this day, only a small number of CubeSats from a very limited number of developers have ever been launched beyond the orbit of the Earth, therefore, challenges that stem from this environment, which is considerably different from the one of Earth orbit, should not be ruled out. Such a challenge could be the ionizing radiation environment that exists beyond the protection of the Earth's magnetic field, as well as in the Van Allen radiation belts, inside which the trajectory of Artemis 1 brought the CubeSats in question. This ionizing radiation can quickly damage electrical electronic equipment including a satellite's telecommunication elements or ADCS system which would in turn inhibit the establishment of stable communications with the spacecraft. Furthermore, the considerably different thermal environment of the translunar and lunar spaces is substantially different than that of Earth orbit entailing dangers of overheating or extensive freezing of the CubeSats, depending on the situation. Last but not least, it should not be forgotten that most of these CubeSat missions were tasked with demonstrating and validating novel technologies and a variety of never-before-flown systems set to perform state-of-the-art mission goals. Therefore, the chances of hardware failure would inherently be high. Therefore, the high failure rate observed among the CubeSats that were launched on Artemis I for lunar exploration missions underlines in the most prominent way the difficulties and risks associated with the use of CubeSat platforms for deep-space exploration missions. However, despite these setbacks, a considerable number of new lunar exploration CubeSat missions is under development as of 2025. One of these upcoming missions is the LUnar Meteoroid Impact Observer (LUMIO). This proposed mission will utilize a 12U CubeSat orbiting the moon in a halo orbit around the Earth-Moon system's L2 Lagrange point that would observe the meteoroid impacts happening on the far-side of the Moon. More specifically, LUMIO will utilize its custom made, LUMIO-Cam optical imager which is developed by LEONARDO S.p.A. (Florence, Italy) and is designed to operate both in the visible and NIR spectral bands (namely between 450 nm and 950 nm), to detect, quantify, as well as characterize the meteoroid impacts that take place on the far-side of the lunar surface. It will achieve this by using its payload for the detection of the flashes caused by the impacts. The meteoroid impact data collected by LUMIO from the Moon's far-side will then complement similar data from the near-side of the Moon's surface which are collected by Earth-based observation platforms and in this way, it will provide the scientific community with a complete image of the meteoroid environment of the Moon [269]. Moreover, it was announced by NASA on 20 September 2024 [270] that the launch of Artemis II mission is going to feature five CubeSats as secondary payloads. It has yet to be disclosed what missions these five CubeSats will perform but it is safe to assume that like Artemis I, a considerable fraction of these five CubeSats will be intended for lunar exploration missions. Furthermore, based on [271], some of the CubeSats present on future Artemis missions (Artemis III onward) are expected to be larger (or smaller) than the 6U ones launched on Artemis I as bigger CubeSat dispensers, capable of housing spacecraft of different sizes will be integrated to the Exploration Upper Stage (EUS) of the SLS Block 1B rocket.