New Strategy for Space Exploration

While miniaturization limits power and payload, it may offer entirely new ways to study the solar system and beyond. This piece from ieee spectrum argues that chip-size spacecraft could do things that no current space probe can do. For example, they could fall to the plains of Mars without a parachute or "float for weeks in the soupy atmosphere of Titan." Mass-produced and launched by the thousands, tiny satellites could form vast space-based sensor networks. Spacecraft have been getting bigger and bigger for decades. Could scientists reverse that trend and instead build the tiniest spacecraft possible?

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