CubeSat Developmental Programs -Working with the Community

The last year has seen an explosion of interest in designing, building, and flying CubeSat- class objects in space. Though there are many unanswered questions surrounding the military usefulness of this new class of space hardware, a few key trends are developing in testing the prototypes for the future military systems. An interface standard is emerging that will allow rapid build and integration of many CubeSats at one time into a multiple launcher configuration. Additionally, focal points to bring the community together into an organized team and do the requisite systems engineering to ensure all components can be flown in a compatible CONOP are emerging. If all goes well in integration of these components, the USAF will gain invaluable analytic and test data to establish the utility and price point appropriate for these small entities. This paper describes the trends in the interface standards and discusses the consolidation of efforts across the CubeSat community over the last year.