Education
University of Idaho.
University of Idaho.
In 2009, Bob Twiggs became a professor at Morehead State University in an effort to push the PocketQube standard leveraging the universities large aperture (21m) space tracking system, and to help develop a space economy in the state of Kentucky. Bob is currently splitting his time between Morehead State University in Kentucky. Twiggs was the co-inventor of the CubeSat reference design, along with professor Jordi Puig-Suari of California Polytechnic State University.
Their goal was to enable graduate students to be able to design, build, test and operate in space a spacecraft with capabilities similar to that of the first spacecraft, Sputnik.
Over time, the CubeSat design emerged as an Industry standard, widely "adopted by universities, companies and government agencies around the world."
The first were launched into low Earth orbit in June 2003. As of August 2012, approximately 75 have been placed into orbit, and the number is growing rapidly.