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A Connecticut museum has been selected to contribute to an upcoming NASA mission.
Bridgeport's The Discovery Museum and Planetarium will join 18 other organizations in the latest round of NASA's CubeSat Launch Initiative.
CubeSats are nanosatellites - small, cube shaped research satellites, about the size of a toaster. Once built, tested and launched into space, The Discovery Museum's CubeSat will conduct research on space debris and other orbiting particles. And according to The Discovery Museum's Manager of Space Science Education David Mestre, the nanosatellite will also be an invaluable teaching tool here on earth.
"It's going to have sensors and cameras that we can control from the ground," said Mestre. "At the museum, we're actually developing a mission operations center."
The CubeSat will be built and tested by a collaboration with The University of Bridgeport, the University of Hawaii, and UTC Aerospace Systems. David Mestre says The Discovery Museum CubeSat will be launched into space with other CubeSats within the next few years.
