QB50 Thermosphere Constellation & Landmark Educational CubeSats (FUNcube, ESTCube, PW-Sat2, BeEagleSat & HAVELSAT)

Multi-point lower thermosphere in-situ sensing with 36 university 2U CubeSats (including Türkiye’s BeEagleSat and HAVELSAT), amateur linear transponders (FUNcube/Nayif-1), and drag-sail deorbit demonstrators.

Document
SQ-MSN-012
Updated
22 Oct 2026
Reading time
2 min
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Coordinated University Science in the Lower Thermosphere (90–380 km)#

Coordinated by the von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics (VKI) under the European FP7 programme, the QB50 project deployed 36 university-built 2U and 3U CubeSats in 2017—28 ejected from the International Space Station via Nanoracks NRCSD and 8 launched on PSLV-C38—to perform multi-point in-situ measurements of neutral and ion composition in the poorly sampled lower thermosphere[1][2].

References

  1. [1]The CubeSat Program, Cal Poly SLO. (2022). CubeSat Design Specification, Rev. 14.1 (CP-CDS-R14.1). California Polytechnic State University.nasa.gov
  2. [2]Libre Space Foundation. (2026). SatNOGS DB — satellite and transmitter database.db.satnogs.org(accessed 20 October 2026)
  3. [3]Langer, M., & Bouwmeester, J. (2016). Reliability of CubeSats — statistical data, developers’ beliefs and the way forward. In: 30th Annual AIAA/USU Conference on Small Satellites (SSC16-X-2).
  4. [4]nadir lab. (2026). PocketQube picosatellites: A review of standards, mission trends and miniaturization constraints, with lessons learned from Grizu-263A, Türkiye’s first PocketQube [Preprint]. nadir lab.Read on nadir lab.

Cite this SatWiki entry

@misc{nadirlab2026qb50,
  author       = {{nadir lab.}},
  title        = {{QB50 Thermosphere Constellation \& Landmark Educational CubeSats (FUNcube, ESTCube, PW-Sat2, BeEagleSat \& HAVELSAT)}},
  year         = {2026},
  month        = oct,
  howpublished = {nadir lab. SatWiki SQ-MSN-012 (Rev. 1)},
  url          = {https://nadirlab.space/en/wiki/qb50-and-university-cubesats/}
}