Cube satellites, called CubeSats, are a common type of nanosatellite comprising a modular framework of cube-shaped building block units (U) that measure 10 centimeters (cm) per side, about twice the size of a Rubik’s cube. For comparison, the spherical Sputnik—the first artificial satellite in orbit—measured 58 cm in diameter and weighed 83.6 kg.
MiniCARB launched into orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Dec. 5, 2019 aboard a SpaceX Cargo Dragon capsule atop a two-stage Falcon 9 rocket.After the launch, the first stage of the Falcon 9 landed safely on SpaceX’s “Of Course I Still Love You” recovery barge, 345 nautical miles down range from the launch pad.
SpaceX, which has a commercial contract with NASA to resupply the International Space Station (ISS), carried up supplies for astronauts, as well as several secondary payloads, including MiniCARB.
Tens of thousands of these objects are tracked and considered lethal, and collisions, intercepts, and catastrophic failures continually increase the amount of debris.
Ref. site (‘https://str.llnl.gov/2019-04/riot’)