Pleiades
The Pleiades CubeSat Cluster is a proposed flight of eight Cube Satellites to provide essential flight heritage for open CubeSat architectures, investigate methods to establish relative navigation & in space situational awareness for collaboration in Small Satellite Swarms, and create educational pathways for students towards the future of the New Space Industry.
The Pleiades CubeSat Cluster is a large-scale inter-university collaboration to test open architectures for small satellites, develop methods for safer and more capable formation flight of spacecraft, while also creating robust pathways for the future of the New Space Industry. This is all set to be accomplished through the design, integration, test, and on-orbit demonstration of a fleet of multiple CubeSats, simultaneously deployed by a single launch. The Pleiades Program seeks to combine the unique satellite architectures, expertise, and resources of a diverse consortium of US universities into this satellite fleet to encourage and create the collaborative communities that are a hallmark of space exploration.
