Satellites are shrinking, and so is the cost to build them and shoot them up into orbit.
Cubesats, which weigh 1.33 kilograms or less, have become popular for researchers with grants and federal agencies like NASA. But their price, while lower than clunky old-school satellites, has remained out of reach for those who can’t pay a mortgage’s worth of money and don’t know how to hitch a ride on a rocket. Enter picosats and femtosats, Cubesats’s smaller, cheaper siblings—and the companies that will help you send them to space.