CubeSat Cadet.
Welcome aboard, Cadet! Today you'll meet the tiniest spacecraft in the sky — the CubeSat — find out what's hiding inside it, and learn an amazing secret: kids your age have built real ones that flew into space. Read the four short lessons, then ace the quiz to earn your first certificate.
A satellite as small as a loaf of bread
A CubeSat is a real, working satellite — but tiny! The smallest size is called 1U: a little cube that's 10 centimeters on every side, about the size of a softball or a small loaf of bread. It weighs around 1.3 kilograms — about the same as a pineapple.
1U = a 10 cm cube!
Bigger CubeSats are just more cubes stacked together, like building blocks.
What's inside?
Even though it's small, a CubeSat has everything a big satellite has, just shrunk down:
🔆 Solar panels drink in sunlight and turn it into electricity for power.
📡 A radio lets it talk to people back on Earth.
🧠 A little computer is the brain that runs everything.
🎒 A payload is its special job — like a camera, or a science sensor.
Kids really build these!
Here's the coolest part: you don't have to be a grown-up scientist. Through NASA's CubeSat Launch Initiative, students design and build real CubeSats and NASA helps launch them. A U.S. elementary school built one called STMSat-1. Middle schoolers built WeissSat-1. A high school built TJ3Sat. Real kids, real satellites, really in space!
Small but mighty
Because CubeSats are small and light, they're much cheaper than giant satellites — and they can hitch a ride to space on a rocket that's already going up with bigger satellites. Small size is their superpower: it makes space possible for schools, clubs, and explorers like you.
Cadet check: 5 questions
Pick the best answer for each. Score 99% (all 5 correct) to earn your Cadet certificate. Get one wrong? Just review and try again!