CubeSats fly free after leaving the NanoRacks CubeSat Deployer on the International Space Station. Seen here are the STMSat-1 and two NODeS satellites. The St. Thomas More (STM) Sat-1 mission is an education mission to provide hands-on, inquiry-based learning activities with an on-orbit mission to photograph the Earth and transmit images to our primary ground station and to remote ground stations throughout the country. The Network & Operation Demonstration Satellite (NODeS) test out the potential for using multiple, small, low-cost satellites to perform complex science missions. CubeSats are a new, low-cost tool for space science missions. Instead of the traditional space science missions that carry a significant number of custom-built, state-of-the-art instruments, CubeSats are designed to take narrowly targeted scientific observations, with only a few instruments, often built from off-the-shelf components. Image Credit: NASA #nasa #cubesat #smallsat #science #space #earth iss #spa...