NASA Set To Launch Shoebox-sized Satellite Studying Earth's Upper Atmosphere

NASA scientists and engineers named their new CubeSat after the mythological Norse god of the dawn. Now, just days from launch, they are confident the shoebox-sized satellite Dellingr will live up to its name and inaugurate a new era for scientists wanting to use small, highly reliable satellites to carry out important, and in some cases, never-before-tried science. Dellingr will study how the ionosphere, a region in Earth’s upper atmosphere, interacts with the Sun. Before launch, Dellingr is required to visit to the Magnetic Test Facility at NASA Goddard to test the spacecraft's magnetometers - key instruments for measuring the direction and strength of the magnetic fields that surround Earth. The spacecraft is scheduled to launch this August aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to the International Space Station where it will be deployed later into a low-Earth orbit.