At NASA, “CuPID” and “CUTE” aren’t just Valentine’s Day buzzwords – they’re the names of two satellite missions launching this fall.
The Cusp Plasma Imaging Detector, or CuPID, will study the boundaries of Earth’s magnetic field to see how energy from the Sun can break through our planet’s magnetic shield. The Colorado Ultraviolet Transit Experiment, or CUTE, will train its telescope on planets outside our solar system to study how quickly their atmospheres are escaping.
Both CuPID and CUTE are CubeSats, a class of very small research satellites. CubeSats are relatively inexpensive to build and launch, in part, because they can easily hitch rides with larger satellite missions. CuPID and CUTE will carpool with NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey’s Landsat 9, taking flight from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.