"For the Cube Quest Challenge, teams must design, develop and deliver a small spacecraft the volume of six combined single CubeSat units that can catch a ride to lunar orbit or further in deep space, and then rapidly transfer large data volumes from itself to Earth, while surviving the extended duration in space." NASA Ames Research Center
Chris Marot, Novel's President and COO, and Bruce Monteleone, Technical Lead traveled to the NASA Ames facility to meet with project managers and competition coordinators to learn more about the challenges that the cube satellites will need to face.
"Novel is excited to be sponsoring and leading a team in
this year's challenge," Marot said. "We are especially
excited to be working with industry leaders in the space realm, and helping
to forge the path ahead for future
robotic and human space exploration. The CubeQuest Challenge kickoff help at Ames was
fun, exciting, and a huge success. We thank Nasa for hosting and running a
great summit."
For the Cube Quest Challenge teams will need to design, develop, test, and launch a small cube satellite that can survive launch and orbit in deep space while transferring large amounts of data back to earth. These satellites are measured in inches, not feet. Some previously developed NASA CubeSats have been 14.4 inches long, 8.9 inches wide, and 3.9 inches tall. The small scale of these satellites will require innovative and new technologies to be developed since they cannot carry large complex machinery.
"Advancements in small spacecraft capabilities will provide benefits to future missions and also may enable entirely new mission scenarios, including future investigations of near-Earth asteroids." said Maria Alberty, NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field California.
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