National Aeronautics and Space Administration
         Jet Propulsion Laboratory
         California Institute of Technology
    Contact: 
        Dr. Vanessa Bailey
        Instrument Scientist, Roman Space Telescope Coronagraph (CGI)
        M/S 321-123, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA 91109
        Vanessa.Bailey@jpl.nasa.gov
        https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5407-2806
        Dr. Mary Knapp
        MIT Haystack Observatory, 99 Millstone Rd, Westford, MA 01886
        mknapp@mit.edu 
        https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5318-7660 
    Citation:  
        “Demonstrating High-precision Photometry with a CubeSat: ASTERIA Observations of 55 Cancri 
    e”
        Knapp, M., et al. (2020), Astronomical Journal 160, 23
        https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/ab8bcc
    Data Sources:  
        Arcsecond Space Telescope Enabling Research in Astrophysics (ASTERIA)
    Technical Description of Figure:
        The ASTERIA satellite is a 10x20x30 cm CubeSat, shown here with its solar panels unfolded.
    Its internal pointing control (0.5” rms) and thermal control (0.01 K) enables precision photometry 
    (100–200 ppm precision).  The satellite successfully detected a transiting super-Earth planet that blocks
    just 0.04% of the light from its parent star.
    Scientific significance, societal relevance, and relationships to future missions:  
        The ASTERIA mission demonstrates that a small, inexpensive satellite can point precisely and       
    maintain thermal stability, yielding the high-precision photometry needed to detect small transiting planets 
    around nearby bright stars.
        This is the first time that a CubeSat has detected any planet, let alone a relatively small super-Earth 
    planet.
        A future constellation of CubeSats could be used to monitor the brightest Sun-like stars in the Solar 
    neighborhood for transiting Earth-like planets.