In 1999, the first CubeSat was created to solve this problem. Their goal was “to develop a compact satellite that university students could build and use to conduct scientific experiments and test out new technologies.” To support university participation, CubeSat developers defined easy-to-understand design standards—packaging key instruments in a roughly 10 cm x 10 cm x 10 cm box. These standards revolutionized accessibility and our capabilities to manufacture and subsequently launch many atmospheric sensors into space. The advent of this technology spurred companies like Planet Lab, Spire, and others. In parallel, as the blueprints for these CubeSats became available in the early 2010s, open source hardware practitioners created new communities and structures to democratize Earth Observations and space exploration.

The community aspect of these endeavors cannot be understated, as small satellites' power lies within their ability to act as pieces of a network—one that is being cultivated daily. With this in mind, LibreCube encourages its community to take charge of creating rovers, drones, and satellites using open-source hardware and software. It has chat rooms for people to share experiences, GitLab forums for prototypes, and links to regulatory standards. PyCubed, another open source CubeSat, aims to make small satellites more technically accessible to CubeSat—potentially taking two years off the build time. In turn, the developers of PyCubed credit Adafruit Industries, an open hardware community, and platform for tools, with providing essential support including the use of CircuitPython, a Python-based open source software for easier programming of embedded systems.

Other organizations like Open Source Satellite, successful launches of open-source satellites, and the uptick in federal involvement from NASA are all early indicators of a trend that is gaining momentum. Atmospheric monitoring and the use of Earth Observations are growing fields in citizen science and conservation tech. As both communities begin to embrace these worlds, the participatory science supply chain will have a handle on the creation of satellites to the analysis of open and global Earth Observations data sets. Regulators such as the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will continue to play an important role in determining how small satellites, including CubeSats, are developed and used.

Open Source Space Wars