Powerful Printed Electronics: CubeSats
It just became a whole lot easier to get into space. Well, not to get you into space per se, but to blast your own satellite up into orbit. With the advent of better circuit board technology, lighter and cheaper building materials, and some enterprising minds, it’s become possible to send small rocket-ships into space for about $80,000. We’re not saying that’s cheap, but we are saying that nations can send up a loaf-of-bread-sized satellite into space for less than the price of a Tesla. They’re called CubeSats, and they help countries keep tabs on the landscape of outer space.
The technology isn’t new—in fact, it’s been around since the late 90s, when US students crafted the tiny devices to be used in miniaturized mock space missions. The quality, however, has been vastly improved, and these PCB-powered shoeboxes and now identify terrestrial gamma ray events. The original models used Sputnik-era radio communications, but that has since been upgraded for long-distance pinging. Over the past 20 years, over 200 countries have launched CubeSats, and there are currently 24 projects in space.
Technological advances in world-changing products like the CubeSat remind us that each day is a new opportunity to educate our customers on how far we’ve come in the printed electronics industry. If you’d like to see how the latest in lightweight materials, blazing-fast conductors, and innovative design can be implemented into your current line of products, contact us today. We’d love to hear from you!