ANDESITE Mule (Ad-Hoc Network Demonstration for Extended Satellite-Based Inquiry and Other Team Endeavors)

Deploys 8 small picosatellites to create space-based wireless network.

Deploys 8 small picosatellites. "ANDESITE is a 6U CubeSat that deploys several smaller “pico-satellites” that each have their own self-contained scientific magnetometer, power system and radio communication system.

Space-Based Wireless Sensor Network (SB-WSN) that addresses the limit of individual satellites’ ability to spatially and temporally resolve the information on various space phenomena. The satellites collect data in a loosely held swarm, relaying the data back to the main spacecraft and down to the Earth through the GlobalStar sat-phone network.

The data obtained from this mission will help map the current sheets of Region 1 and Region 2 Birkeland currents. It will also provide solid new constraints for models of auroral particle acceleration, wave particle interactions, ionospheric destabilization and other kinetic processes operating in the low-beta plasma of near Earth magnetosphere.