page_title: Miniature X-ray Solar Spectrometer CubeSat
hierarchical_section_title: Miniature X-ray Solar Spectrometer CubeSat
caption_attribution_description: English: The sun-facing side of the MinXSS spacecraft. The two hinged solar panels are in their deployed state. The science instrument apertures can be see near the top. The tape-measure antenna extends beyond the top of the photo. Image taken after final integration of the spacecraft. Credit: James Paul Mason, University of Colorado at Boulder, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics
context_page_description: The Miniature X-ray Solar Spectrometer CubeSat was the first launched National Aeronautics and Space Administration Science Mission Directorate CubeSat with a science mission. It was designed, built, and operated primarily by students at the University of Colorado Boulder with professional mentorship and involvement from professors, scientists, and engineers in the Aerospace Engineering Sciences department and the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, as well as Southwest Research Institute, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research's High Altitude Observatory. The mission principal investigator is Dr. Thomas N. Woods and co-investigators are Dr. Amir Caspi, Dr. Phil Chamberlin, Dr. Andrew Jones, Rick Kohnert, Professor Xinlin Li, Professor Scott Palo, and Dr. Stanley Solomon. The student lead was Dr. James Paul Mason, who has since become a Co-I for the second flight model of MinXSS.
  MinXSS launched on 2015 December 6 to the International Space Station as part of the Orbital ATK Cygnus CRS OA-4 cargo resupply mission. The launch vehicle was a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket in the 401 configuration.
context_section_description: The Miniature X-ray Solar Spectrometer (MinXSS) CubeSat was the first launched National Aeronautics and Space Administration Science Mission Directorate CubeSat with a science mission. It was designed, built, and operated primarily by students at the University of Colorado Boulder with professional mentorship and involvement from professors, scientists, and engineers in the Aerospace Engineering Sciences department and the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, as well as Southwest Research Institute, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research's High Altitude Observatory. The mission principal investigator is Dr. Thomas N. Woods and co-investigators are Dr. Amir Caspi, Dr. Phil Chamberlin, Dr. Andrew Jones, Rick Kohnert, Professor Xinlin Li, Professor Scott Palo, and Dr. Stanley Solomon. The student lead (project manager, systems engineer) was Dr. James Paul Mason, who has since become a Co-I for the second flight model of MinXSS.
  MinXSS launched on 2015 December 6 to the International Space Station as part of the Orbital ATK Cygnus CRS OA-4 cargo resupply mission. The launch vehicle was a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket in the 401 configuration. CubeSat ridesharing was organized as part of NASA ELaNa-IX. Deployment from the International Space Station was achieved with a NanoRacks CubeSat Deployer on 2016 May 16. Spacecraft beacons were picked up soon after by amateur radio operators around the world. Commissioning of the spacecraft was completed on 2016 June 14 and observations of solar flares captured nearly continuously since then. The altitude rapidly decayed in the last week of the mission as atmospheric drag increased exponentially with altitude. The last contact from MinXSS came on 2017-05-06 at 02:37:26 UTC from a HAM operator in Australia. At that time, some temperatures on the spacecraft were already in excess of 100 °C. (One temperature of >300 °C indicated that the solar panel had disconnected, suggesting this contact was only moments before disintegration.) Science data spanning the entire mission are publicly available.
caption: The sun-facing side of the MinXSS spacecraft. The two hinged solar panels are in their deployed state. The science instrument apertures can be see near the top. The tape-measure antenna extends beyond the top of the photo. Image taken after final integration of the spacecraft.
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