Suomi NPP / ELaNa III

The Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership or Suomi NPP, previously known as the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project (NPP) and NPP-Bridge, is a weather satellite operated by the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The ELaNa initiative has made partnerships with universities in the US to design and launch small research satellites called CubeSats because of their cube shape. These low-cost CubeSat missions provide NASA with valuable opportunities to test emerging technologies that may be useful in future space missions, while university students get to be involved in all phases of the mission, from instrument and satellite design, to launch and monitoring. The 5 following cube sat are part of the mission: (NPOESS Preparatory Project) RAX-2, M-Cubed, Explorer-1 Prime, DICE, AubieSat-1