"Cubesat Revolutionizes Astronomy with New Insights on 'Hot Jupiters'"

The Colorado Ultraviolet Transit Experiment (CUTE), a NASA-funded small satellite equipped with a telescope and spectrograph, has exceeded its expected lifetime and continues to gather data on the atmospheric loss of "hot jupiters." Its success has led to the development of two additional NASA-funded missions, Sprite and Mantis, which will study various aspects of galaxies and the habitability of planets. Lessons learned from CUTE are helping researchers understand how to build small spacecraft and instruments. The extended lifespan of CUTE has been attributed to ingenuity and luck, and its success has demonstrated the potential for small satellites to play a significant role in observing distant galaxies and other astronomical phenomena.