Originally, most CubeSats were designed by students and faculty, but commercially designed and operated CubeSats are now in the majority, such as the many downward-pointing 3U telescopes built and operated by PLANET, a Silicon Valley tech startup. It’s not hard to envision many upward-pointing CubeSat telescopes designed, built, and utilized by students and faculty for astronomical research. A few have already been launched, and, as suggested by Arizona State University astronomer Evgenya Shkolnik by the title of her recent (attached) paper, we are “On the verge of an astronomy CubeSat revolution.”

The time is ripe to bring together the nascent CubeSat Astronomy community-of-practice which consists of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics students and faculty, and supporting government agencies, foundations, and commercial firms. Each year, for the past 15 years, Cal Poly has hosted the CubeSat Developer’s Workshop, and in 2019, it will be immediately followed by the first CubeSat Astronomy Workshop. All are welcome.