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
Reading time
2 min
In this tab

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].

Selected QB50 & University Milestone CubeSats

MissionSizeUniversity / ConsortiumYearScientific / Engineering Contribution
FUNcube-1 (AO-73)1UAMSAT-UK / ISISPACE20131200 bps BPSK STEM telemetry + 20 kHz U/V linear transponder; >12 yr active
ESTCube-11UUniv. of Tartu (EE)2013Estonia’s first satellite; electric solar wind sail tether experiment
BeEagleSat (QB50 TR01)2UİTÜ & Turkish Air Force Academy2017Multi-Needle Langmuir Probe (m-NLP) + X-ray detector from ISS
HAVELSAT (QB50 TR02)2UHAVELSAN & İTÜ2017Flux-Phi-Probe (FIPEX) atomic oxygen sensor + software-defined radio
UBAKUSAT3UİTÜ / TAMSAT / RFTEK / JAXA2018Kibo J-SSOD deployment; V/U linear transponder + indigenous X-band module
PW-Sat22UWarsaw Univ. of Technology (PL)2018Deployed 4 m² Mylar drag sail at 590 km, cutting orbital life from 15 yr to 813 days

Impact on University Reliability and Deorbit Engineering

Large educational cohorts such as QB50, ESA Fly Your Satellite!, and NASA CSLI demonstrated that standardized ICDs, shared sensor front-ends, and open ground-station networks () significantly reduce early on-orbit infant mortality[3][4].

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-class picosatellites: architecture, flight heritage, and a multi-method post-flight analysis of Grizu-263A [Preprint]. nadir lab. Research Monographs (SQ-R-001).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/wiki/qb50-and-university-cubesats/}
}