University of New Brunswick

Published purpose

CubeSat NB will provide new insights into the behaviour of Earth's upper atmosphere including the ionosphere. It will receive signals transmitted by global navigation satellite systems, such as GPS, and they travel through the ionosphere and are affected by it. Researchers will be able to use the data to further study how the ionosphere changes from place to place over time as well as how it responds to space weather. Significant space weather events can interfere with communications systems and electrical grids. CubeSat NB will additionally carry three cameras. Two cameras will allow the team to study the distribution of oxygen in the upper atmosphere, capturing images of the red and green light oxygen atoms given off during aurora and airglow events. The images will be used to examine the varying composition of the ionosphere and its response to solar storms. The third camera will be used to take images of Earth's surface for Earth science and meteorology applications. Knowledge of Earth's oceans is critical to understanding climate change. The New Brunswick CubeSat will be jointly built with the University of Moncton and the New Brunswick Community College (NBCC) campus in Saint John.