QB50 CubeSat Constellation

Details of the plan by the Von Karman Institute to launch a constellation of 50 CubeSats are available on the European Space Agency website.

The Von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics (VKI) plan to use the 50 CubeSats to study the atmosphere between 90 and 300 km, and the process of re-entry into the atmosphere.

The CubeSats will be built by universities and will all have the same sensors. The article gives a target launch date of July 2013 on a Shtil rocket from the nuclear submarine base in Murmansk, north of the Arctic Circle.

Read the article in Google English at
http://tinyurl.com/QB50-200912

There appears to be a typo in the original text, Bob Griggs should be Bob Twiggs KE6QMD,

ESA have just posted a satellite image showing Von Karman vortices south of the Canary Island archipelago, some 95 km from the northwest coast of Africa in the Atlantic Ocean.

Von Karman vortices, named after aeronautical engineer Theodore von Karman, form as air flows around an object in its path, causing it to separate and create eddies in its wake, see
http://www.esa.int/esaEO/SEM2UOPK2AG_index_0.html

Von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics (VKI)
http://www.vki.ac.be/

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