Bob Twiggs

Robert J. "Bob" Twiggs (born 1935) is an American aerospace engineer, educator, and small satellite pioneer. He is best known for co-inventing the CubeSat reference design for miniaturized satellites along with Jordi Puig-Suari of California Polytechnic State University, a standardized architecture for small satellites that became widely used in education, research, technology demonstration, and commercial space applications.

Before becoming widely known for CubeSats, Twiggs developed a career at the intersection of engineering, education, and hands-on spacecraft development. His central educational philosophy emphasized learning by building. Rather than treating satellites only as large institutional projects, he promoted small spacecraft as practical teaching tools that could give students direct experience with systems engineering, hardware integration, testing, communications, and mission operations.

Twiggs was also critical in the invention and development of several other educational satellite concepts, including CanSat, PocketQube, and ThinSat. He is an emeritus professor of Astronautics and Space Science at Morehead State University.