How to visit Mars with a tiny satellite, static electricity and ion thrusters

Cubesats, low-cost, bite-sized satellites inspired by the tubes used to hold Beanie Babies, were invented in 1999 as educational tools. Now, aerospace suppliers and governments across the...

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NSIKAN AKPAN: Have you heard of space Internet?Four thousand small satellites orbiting Earth, beaming down high-speed broadband to the mostremote nooks of the planet, reaching billions.SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, Boeing, and Airbus are all racing to make space internet a reality.This scheme depends on CubeSats, low-cost, bite-sized satellites that many view as thefuture of telecommunications and deep space exploration.But these CubeSats have a big problem.Conventional rockets with their huge chemical fuel tanks are too large and too powerfulfor CubeSats, which are as tiny as Rubik's Cubes or small printers.It'd be like strapping your bicycle to a monster truck.So CubeSats are currently built without propulsion and can't be controlled once in orbit.Th...