Science

AEROCUBE 16A

CubeSat Materials Science Technology Demonstrator · The Aerospace Corporation

First of a pair of 6U CubeSats in The Aerospace Corporation's AeroCube-16 mission, hosting a suite of advanced materials experiments in low Earth orbit. AeroCube-16A's mission is to expose new material samples to the harsh combination of vacuum, thermal cycling, atomic oxygen erosion, and radiation that defines the space environment — data used to validate ground-based testing methods and inform the material choices for future spacecraft designs across the entire Aerospace Corporation portfolio.