Swarm of satellites to explore Earth's shield from International Space Station

A flotilla of 50 small satellites - known as cubesats and weighing an average of two kilos each - will be launched from the International Space Station in the European-led as QB50 mission to explore the little-understood region above Earth known as the thermosphere. The QB50 cubesats have been built by 48 universities and research institutes from 28 nations, including Canada, China, France, Italy, Korea, UK, USA and Australia (see the full list here). It is led by Belgium's Von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics, and includes three Australian satellites, two of them built at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. More

(Source: EurekAlert - Aug 10)