The University of Louisiana at Lafayette is one of four universities in the United States whose miniature, student-built satellites will get a free launch into orbit.

United Launch Alliance, a launch service provider, will take the schools’ CubeSats on future Atlas V rocket missions. A team of reviewers also chose to transport small satellites from the University of Texas at El Paso, Purdue University and the University of Michigan. Selection criteria included schools’ mission objectives and ability to meet technical requirements.

A CubeSat can weigh up to 2.9 pounds. It’s used to perform scientific research and explore new space technologies.

Dr. Paul Darby, an assistant professor in UL Lafayette’s Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, said the University’s CubeSat will gather data about matter expelled from the sun during solar flares and other sun-related activity, which are called coronal mass ejections.

UL Lafayette’s satellite will be launched into a highly elliptical orbit; its altitude will range from about 125 miles to 21,700 miles. That path will provide a chance to study effects of coronal mass ejections “on the Earth’s magnetic field, emitted light spectra, and the Earth’s radiation belts at a continuum of distances away from our planet,” Darby said.

He estimates it would cost about $100,000 to launch the University’s satellite if it had not been able to book a ride on an Atlas IV mission. The Louisiana Coronal Mass Ejection Correlation Experiment Satellite is scheduled to go into orbit in late fall of 2018.

Darby and Dr. Andy Hollerman, a UL Lafayette physics professor, are co-investigators of the CubeSat project. They are seeking about $50,000 for expenses related to a student team’s design and construction of the satellite.

United Launch Alliance’s rideshare program, CubeCorp, “encourages hands-on science, technology, engineering and math experience to motivate, educate and develop the next generation of rocket scientists and space entrepreneurs,” according to its website.

The company has successfully launched over 100 conventional satellites and 55 CubeSats. It’s a partnership between Lockheed Martin and Boeing Co.

UL Lafayette students were the first students at a Louisiana university to design, build and launch a working satellite. CAPE1 was sent into orbit from a site in the Republic of Kazakhstan in 2007.

Photo: This picosatellite built by UL Lafayette students was sent into orbit in 2007.