Michigan Multipurpose Minisat
In the summer of 2007, a small group of students took the opportunity to start a new project at the University of Michigan's Student Space Systems Fabrication Lab (S3FL).
Today, the Michigan Multipurpose Minisat (M-Cubed) project continues due to the support of numerous organizations, including the University of Michigan, S3FL, Jet Propulsion Lab, and NASA's Earth Science Technology Office.
The project follows the guidelines set forth by the California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly). The cubesat platform shall not exceed a mass of 1 kg and shall fit within a 10cm x 10cm x 10cm envelope as the Cal Poly guidelines state.
The objective of MCubed is to obtain a mid resolution image to date of Earth with at least 60% land mass and a maximum of 20% cloud coverage from a single cubesat platform. S3FL is also developing the MCubed bus with the intention of making it a heritage design, thus allowing for future missions to be flown on the same bus.
M-Cubed is planned to launch in the Fall of 2011 on the NASA's third Educational Launch of Nanosat (ELaNa).
