33 'Cubesats' to Launch from Space Station This Month

Three small CubeSats float above the Earth after deployment from the International Space Station.

Astronaut Rick Mastracchio tweeted the photo from the station on Nov. 19, 2013.

Credit: Rick Mastracchio ‏(via Twitter as @AstroRM)

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station are preparing for the deployment of nearly three dozen tiny satellites from the orbiting lab over the coming weeks.

The spaceflyers have been installing special equipment that will launch 33 "cubesats" from the space station this month, with the first round of ejections scheduled to take place on Thursday (Feb. 6).

Mike Johnson

"We believe this will be a world-record deployment, of the number of satellites in one deployment," Michael Johnson, chief technology officer of the space-hardware firm NanoRacks, said in a NASA video last week.



NanoRacks helps organize and integrate some research activites aboard the space station. The company built eight new deployers that will launch the 33 cubesats, which were delivered to the orbiting lab Jan. 12 on the first contracted cargo mission of Orbital Sciences' unmanned Cygnus resupply spacecraft.

Six cubesats will be launched from the station Thursday, NASA officials said. The rest will begin flying freely over the course of the following two weeks or so.

Twenty-eight of the 33 cubesats were built by the San Francisco-based company Planet Labs.

Together, these spacecraft make up "Flock 1," which Planet Labs says will be the world's biggest constellation of Earth-imaging satellites.