You’ll see that CubeSats use a U designator to indicate their size. Each U is a cube measuring 100mm — about 4 inches — on a side. So a 2U satellite would be the same size as two 1U ...

CubeSats can be 1U, 2U, 3U, or even 6U, with increasing mass allowances. They are ferried into space as secondary payloads and then spring-deployed into orbit.

The Plasma Spectroscopy CubeSat (P-Spec) consists of a pair of satellites that launch as an integrated unit and separate after deployment. The two satellites will operate in mother-daughter ...