SoFIE Spacecraft - Nanosats Database

Spacecraft name	SoFIE (Solar Flare and Ionosphere Explorer)
Form factor	CubeSat
Units or mass	3U
Status	not launched, expected in 2026
Launcher	not launched
Organization	Saint Francis University
Institution	University
Entity type	Academic / Education
Headquarters	US
Oneliner	Investigate the highest layer of the Earth's atmosphere and measure fluctuations from lightning at the bottom of it and solar flares at the top.
Description	The primary objective of our 3U CubeSat mission is to expose SFU’s students to the art and science of developing a space flight mission as a part of the undergraduate experience and encourage them to pursue careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). This objective is extended to local high school students by providing them an opportunity to build, test, and fly two experiments as a part of the mission. Finally, the STEM objective is also extended to the global amateur radio operator community by providing opportunities for them to become Citizen Scientists and conduct joint experiments throughout the mission lifetime. The science objective of the SFU-1 mission is to investigate how solar flares and solar activity affect the upper region of the Earth’s atmosphere – the ionosphere. To do this, the spacecraft will observe HF radio burst emissions from the Sun, known to be associated with solar flares. The spacecraft will also collect radio transmission from the ground using a broadband 3-30MHz receiver. We are actively collaborating with the University of Scranton HamSCI initiative to engage the United States and global amateur radio community to participate in this program. We will coordinate with Hams to conduct transionospheric experiments in multiple HF amateur bands. All HF data collected during the SoFIE mission will be made freely available to all Hams via the HamSCI interface that is being established. Comparing emissions from the Sun to ground-based transmissions, we will be able to determine how the ionosphere is changing as a function of solar activity. Finally, SoFIE is a hybrid mission utilizing a secondary, independent payload (a 9.303 MHz topside sounding instrument authorized under an FCC Part 5 Experimental license).
Sources	[1] [2]
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Last modified: 2026-07-31