DcubeD was at the Small Satellite Conference, also known as SmallSat, the premiere conference on small satellites from August 6-11. The annual gathering of the small satellite community took place at the Utah State University and brought together experts in the industry and the academia to discuss the most recent developments and key challenges in the world of SmallSats.

DcubeD brought a surprise of their own to the conference for anyone who is bored of taking selfies with their phone: DcubeD’s Out-of-this-world selfie booth. Visitors of the booth had the opportunity to take a Space Selfie using DcubeD’s deployable selfie stick. The selfie stick does not only enable spacecrafts to take on-orbit selfies using only < 0.5 U stowed volume, but it also delivers amazing conference keepsakes.

The six-day conference was packed with exciting technical sessions, during which DcubeD colleague Dr Antonio Pedivellano held a presentation on Power Cube, a 100 W origami-inspired deployable solar array designed and developed for nano satellites. The sessions kicked off with advanced concepts, where recent advancements in the SmallSat hardware and software is discussed, followed by reviews of the recent launches. The advancements on the mission level were discussed in the Science/Mission Payloads sessions. The on-orbit mobility of the SmallSats was communicated in the Propulsion session, while the session Space Access reviewed the launch opportunities for the small satellites. The conference had, in addition to the commercial exhibitors, a university exhibit area, so the conference offered something for any SmallSat enthusiast in the community from student to expert.

The SmallSat Conference was a blast, DcubeD will be back. Should we bring back the Space Selfie Booth?