Advances in CubeSats for Earth Observation

Dear Colleagues,

Since the creation of the standard in 1999, CubeSats have represented a valid instrument for engineers and researchers to experiment and implement space missions. With more than 2000 CubeSats launched to date, by more than 80 different countries, they have reached a prominent role in many fields of space exploitation from business to research science and planetary exploration. Contrarily to the so called “traditional” satellites, which with the advancement of technology tend to become smaller and yet more performant, CubeSats from their birth had to deal with the challenges of miniaturization, growing from the 1U form factor (i.e., a 10 × 10 × 10 cm cube), which was widely used in the early times of this standard, to a 3U form factor very common up to a few years ago where nowadays the most used are 6U, 8U, 12U and even 16U. This rapid growth shows the maturity potential which has led CubeSats to evolve from being an instrument for educational purposes, typical of the 1U factor at the early stage of this standard, to more advanced applications that include Earth Science, Astronomy, Telecommunications, Business exploitation and others, capable of de-risking technologies for larger spacecraft or delivering high value data products.

The aim of this special issue is to capture the advances in CubeSat technologies which enable the most advanced applications and science in the field of Earth observation. Hence papers related to CubeSat advances in Earth Observation instrument technology, enabling technologies, new remote sensing techniques, and advances in applications in remote sensing are welcome. Articles may address, but are not limited to, the following topics:

• Remote sensing technique using CubeSats
• Earth observation application based on CubeSats mission
• CubeSat Enabling technologies
• Advances in Earth observation research mission based on CubeSats

Dr. Massimiliano Pastena
Dr. Marco D’Errico
Dr. Camille Pirat
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Remote Sensing is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• CubeSats
• enabling technology
• remote sensing techniques
• research mission
• earth observation applications
• earth observation instrument technology
• artificial intelligence
• constellations and swarm of CubeSats
• miniaturization