Q-PACE [UCF]
The Q-PACE or Cu-PACE (CubeSat Particle Aggregation and Collision Experiment) is a 3U CubeSat mission developed at the University of Central Florida (UCF) to investigate the behaviour of dust particles in low gravity and to perform a long-duration microgravity experiments in orbit to observe novel low-speed collisions in greater numbers than possible in ground-based, parabolic and suborbital flight experiments.
The long durations will enable study of rare events, such as sticking or fragmentation that occur only in one collision in a thousand. The mission will examine impacts between compact millimeter-sized and centimeter-sized particles and aggregates of micron-sized grains. This size combination was selected due to experimental results that suggest combining particles with very different sizes enables a fraction of the larger bodies to grow.
The payload consists of a GoPro video camera and a test cell - one of the reservoir chambers contains glass and iron beads of 1 mm in diameter and the second reservoir contains SiO2 aggregates sieved to a size distribution around 100 µm in diameter.
It was selected in 2015 by NASA to be launched as part of the ELaNa program.
Nation: | USA |
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Type / Application: | Microgravity |
Operator: | University of Central Florida (UCF) |
Contractors: | University of Central Florida (UCF) |
Equipment: | Test cell |
Configuration: | CubeSat (3U) |
Propulsion: | None |
Power: | Solar cells, batteries |
Lifetime: | |
Mass: | |
Orbit: |
Satellite | COSPAR | Date | LS | Launch Vehicle | Remarks | |
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Q-PACE (Cu-PACE) | - | 2018 | Mo | LauncherOne | with INCA, CACTUS 1, ExoCube 2, MicroMAS 2b, MiTEE 1, PolarCube, TechEdSat 7, RadFxSat 2, CAPE 3, PICS 1, PICS 2, SHFT 2, IMPACT 2A, IMPACT 2B |