The ELFIN satellite currently under construction at UCLA has been selected to receive funding by the NASA Low Cost Access to Space (LCAS) program. The LCAS website describes their mission as supporting “science investigations that may be completed through suborbital flight, as well as proof-testing new technologies that may ultimately find application in free-flying Heliophysics space missions.”
ELFIN is primarily being designed and built by a group of undergraduate students supervised by Prof. Vassilis Angelopoulos. The satellite is about the size of a loaf of bread, weighs 8 pounds, and will house a magnetometer and particle detector to take space weather measurements around Earth’s poles. Learn more about the mission from the ELFIN website.
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