Real flying saucers

Jan 7th 2026|2 min read

As the number of satellites launched each year increases, so does the value of standardisation. At the moment, the nearest thing the satellite business has to an industry standard are CubeSats. These are boxes assembled from 10cm cubes, and have been around since 1999. They were invented by two Californian professors as a way for students to be able to design scientific experiments that could be launched cheaply into orbit. But they then, as it were, took off for general use. By now, more than 3,000 have been launched. In 2018 two of them travelled as far as Mars, though they did not land there.