These tiny satellites could take on NASA’s riskiest missions (video)

WASHINGTON, July 28, 2016 — At the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California, NASA is preparing tiny satellites the size of briefcases for a mission to Mars. Called CubeSats, swarms of these small marvels could potentially take on NASA’s riskiest missions — think exploring the surface of Venus or the volcanoes of Io — at a lower cost than full-size, multi-instrument satellites. Matt Davenport and JPL Chief Engineer for Interplanetary Small Spacecraft Andrew Klesh geek out on CubeSats in the latest Speaking of Chemistry episode. Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/OGmiv53La0o

Speaking of Chemistry is a production of Chemical & Engineering News, a weekly magazine of the American Chemical Society. The program features fascinating, weird and otherwise interesting chemistry topics. Subscribe to our weekly series at http://bit.ly/ACSReactions and follow us on Twitter @CENMag.