Questions tagged [marco-cubesats]

MarCO (or Mars Cube One) was a Mars flyby mission launched alongside NASA's InSight Mars lander mission. It consisted of two 6U-sized cubesats, MarCO-A and MarCO-B, that provided a real-time communications link to Earth for InSight during its entry, descent, and landing - when InSight was out of line of sight from the Earth.

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How can the two MarCO cubesats remain reliably close to InSight during their six month trip to Mars?

According to the NASA JPL web page Mars Cube One (MarCO) Mission Overview and the YouTube video MarCO: First Interplanetary CubeSat Mission linked there, after the Centaur upper stage deploys InSight, ...
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How does the pattern on the MarCo cubesat's antenna boost data-transmission?

I was looking at a few posts that uhoh had made about the MarCo cubesat. One of the pictures was the one that I've posted below: Source The most I can gather from casual NASA articles is along the ...
Magic Octopus Urn's user avatar
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Where is the camera on the MarCo cubesat that took this "pale blue dot" type of photo of the Earth and the Moon?

Where is the camera on the MarCo cubesat that took this "pale blue dot" type of photo of the Earth and the Moon? Is there an official NASA web site for photos from the MarCo cube sats? This one is ...
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If a MarCO-type CubeSat were in orbit around Bennu, what kind of power would it need to communicate with the Deep Space Network?

This is a follow-up question to: What is the lowest power signal that the DSN can detect? Essentially, I have determined that the asteroid Bennu (ranging from 25 to 350 million kilometers from Earth) ...
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Why did the MarCO space probes use fire extinguishant as their propellant?

In many news articles, it's mentioned that the MarCO spacecraft, launched with InSight, used fire extinguishant as the propellant for its cold gas thrusters. I originally assumed that this was ...
charliegreen's user avatar
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MarCo, Polo? Any further news, or images, or transmissions from the MarCo deep space cubesats?

Edit: Two more months have gone by since I posted this question. Can there still be no news? Nothing for the two MarCo cubesats to take photos of; not even each other? While InSight is still "...
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Why was MarCO-B CubeSats flying away after InSight landed?

Farewell to Mars November 26, 2018 MarCO-B, one of the experimental Mars Cube One (MarCO) CubeSats, took this image of Mars from about 4,700 miles (6,000 kilometers) away during its flyby of the Red ...
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How much did each MarCO 6U cubesat weigh?

Yes the answer is zero now because they are weightless, but I used past tense. In any event, let's try to find a good, reliable source for each spacecraft's mass and whether that number is dry or ...
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X-Band range and data

In summary I am working on a network consisting of 8 cubesat 1U that will be at an orbit altitude of 850Km. The question is that I am working on communications, the idea is that this network of ...
Valentino Zaffrani's user avatar
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What will (or did) end of mission look like for the MarCo cubesats?

These two 6U's are the farthest cubsats from Earth. Are they still talking to us and being talked to? With loss of remaining propellant for momentum unloading needed for high-gain antenna pointing ...
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Is the prompt relay of landing telemetry by the MarCo cubesats to Earth really a "first"?

The MarCo cubesats travelled from Earth to Mars alongside InSight and relayed signals from InSight (UHF) to Earth (X-band) during it's descent and landing on the surface of Mars. The NPR podcast and ...
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Did the MarCo cubesats photograph each other or the Centaur stage from which they were deployed?

The screenshot below is an artists rendering of two MarCo cubesats and a Centaur upper stage moving together in space. I'm wondering if either of the MarCos photographed the other or the upper stage ...
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