Roles for CubeSats in Space Weather Research: Vision and Assessment

The improving state-of-the-art in CubeSat practice and reliability and its relevance to space weather research is examined and discussed.  The discussion builds upon the obvious idea that new opportunities for advancing space weather research are opened by the greater access to space afforded by the CubeSat paradigm.  Several classes of measurements are benefited by greater access to space, and those measurements, as well as those that are difficult to accommodate within a CubeSat platform, are examined.  An arguably greater benefit to space weather research is the idea that large constellations of space-based measurements are enabled by a CubeSat-reliant architecture, and that idea is also explored.  Examples from previous, current, and future CubeSat missions are used to underscore these points.