CubeQuest Challenge
In 2015, NASA officially launched the CubeQuest Challenge. This multi-branched competition has two classes of culminating challenges: the Lunar Derby and the Deep Space Derby. Both focus on small satellite design and communications, but the Lunar Derby mission profile stays within the moon’s orbit while the Deep Space course ranges are significantly farther away. For the top teams, NASA is offering the opportunity to launch satellites on the integrated flight of Orion and Space Launch System (SLS). The communications component of the challenge allows for both optical and the more conventional RF systems, but SSI’s OpComms group had strong interest in developing ang optical solution and so sought to participate in the Lunar Derby challenge. This is because optical communications systems must become more precise with longer transmission distances and the Deep Space challenge required a tenfold increase in displacement.
In addition to the final missions, several Ground Tournaments are available for teams to compete in. Participating teams receive a design review by NASA engineers, and, for the most successful teams, monetary rewards to help continue development. In order to be considered for launch on the SLS [1], teams must have participated in some of the Ground Tournaments.
As of now, SSI's OpComms team is not pursuing the CubeQuest challenge, because the group felt that the goals of the competition - which required large developments in satellite propulsion and other non-communication systems - were not completely aligned with the technological challenges the team was interested in pursuing and pushed the scope of the project beyond what might be feasible. The large amounts of interest in SSI from private space companies led the team to believe that monetary and launch resources could be acquired through independent sponsorship, which would allow the group freedom from the restricted scope of the CubeQuest competition.
More information on the CubeQuest Challenge can be found on the Nasa Website [2]