CubeSats are miniaturised satellites that weigh less than 1.33 kilograms and are used for experimentation or to demonstrate new technologies, and they are increasingly common thanks to their low cost and compactness.
Since they were first developed in the 1990s, around 1,200 CubeSats have been launched into space. The 11th European CubeSat Symposium took place on September 11-13, 2019 at the University of Luxembourg. Co-organised by the university, the von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics, and the Luxembourg Space Agency (LSA), the symposium informed attendees about the most recent developments in the fast-changing world of these tiny satellites, and allowed them to learn about current and future scientific projects involving CubeSats. Nearly 100 people attended the three-day event, and the list of renowned speakers included Deputy Prime Minister Étienne Schneider; Peter Platzer, CEO of the space-to-cloud analytics company Spire Global; and Jean-Jacques Dordain, who served as the director general of the European Space Agency (ESA) from 2003 to 2015. Among the cutting-edge topics discussed were orbital dynamics, propulsion subsystems, and CubeSat launchers and deployers.
