Discover what NASA, California Polytechnic State University, and Stanford have been doing with satellites. Did you know there are toaster-sized spacecraft orbiting around the Earth?

Subscribe for more wacky universe videos: https://bit.ly/2LUOOD2

The 2011 Michigan Multipurpose Minisatellite carried the 1U COVE Unfortunately it became magnetically attached to another CubeSat during deployment. The satellite could not be controlled in any way rendering it useless. This necessitated a second launch of the MMM/COVE-2, in 2013, whose mission remained the same: take mid-resolution images of Earth, while engaged with COVE. COVE's purpose was to use the photographic information as fodder for its new processing algorithm to reduce the data rate by two orders of magnitude, deliver the same data, and all without losing any useful science information in the process. This entailed using a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), which is essentially a powerful parallel processer that is more capable than the traditional variety.

#nasa #cubesat