Remember Beanie Babies? What began as a child's toy turned adult collectible in the mid-90s helped create a new class of spacecraft enabling the University of North Carolina at Wilmington's Center for Marine Science to study oceans from space.

U-class spacecraft, better known as CubeSats, were born two decades ago when Bob Twiggs, then a professor at Stanford University, spotted clear plastic containers designed to protect and display Beanie Babies.

“I got a 4-inch Beanie Baby box and tacked on some solar cells to see how many would fit on the surface. I had enough voltage for what I needed, so I decided that would be the size.” Twiggs told the Journal of Small Satellites.

Twiggs, along with CalTech engineer Jordi Puig-Suari, developed the CubeSat form factor. These miniaturized satellites have enabled engineering students worldwide to get hands-on experience designing, constructing and deploying satellites.

While each pound of payload typically costs around $10,000 to launch into low Earth orbit, CubeSats take advantage of remaining capacity on rockets lifting larger satellites into orbit at a much lower cost. SpaceX currently lists availability for CubeSats on all 17 launches scheduled for 2019, with prices starting at less than $300 to low Earth orbit.



On Tuesday, December 4, UNC Wilmington successfully launched their 3U CubeSat, about the size of a loaf of bread, Seahawk-1, along with 48 other CubeSats aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Seahawk-1 is now in a sun-synchronous low Earth orbit studying oceans via the HawkEye Ocean Color Imager. Study of ocean color assists the better understanding everything from plankton populations to the degradation of coral reefs to the effects of El Niño. The sun-synchronous orbit allows researchers to monitor day to day changes, imaging a swath of ocean 230 km wide down to a resolution of 120m wide.

“Landsat ocean color images traditionally cost about $1,000 each, and UNCW’s will be free to everybody.” said UNCW Center for Marine Science Professor John M. Morrison. “The data collected will improve our ability to monitor coastal environments where anthropogenic stresses like ‘red tides’ are often most acute.”