UNITE (Undergraduate Nano Ionospheric Temperature Explorer) was a

CubeSat A CubeSat is a class of miniaturized satellite based around a form factor consisting of cubes. CubeSats have a mass of no more than per unit, and often use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components for their electronics and structure. CubeSats ...

nanosatellite A small satellite, miniaturized satellite, or smallsat is a satellite of low mass and size, usually under . While all such satellites can be referred to as "small", different classifications are used to categorize them based on mass. Satellites ca ...

developed by the

University of Southern Indiana The University of Southern Indiana (USI) is a public university just outside of Evansville, Indiana. Founded in 1965, USI enrolls 9,750 dual credit, undergraduate, graduate and doctoral students in more than 130 areas of study. USI offers program ...

. The project was funded by

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...

's Undergraduate Student Instrument Project and primarily designed and built by students. It was launched into space on 5 December 2018 and deployed into its orbit from the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ( ...

on 31 January 2019. Its mission included measuring plasma in the lower ionosphere and monitoring the drag and temperature of the satellite itself. UNITE reentered the atmosphere on 21 October 2021, after 994 days in orbit.

References

External links

Official site
Satellites deployed from the International Space Station Spacecraft launched in 2018 Spacecraft which reentered in 2021 Student satellites Nanosatellites CubeSats {{US-spacecraft-stub