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Standards & Protocols

The standards, specifications and protocols a CubeSat is designed and tested against: the CubeSat Design Specification and the deployer manuals that outrank it, environmental and materials standards, CCSDS and ECSS protocols, and the regulatory documents.

A practical note: some of these are free, some are paywalled, and the ones that matter most to a CubeSat team – the CDS, GEVS, the ECSS testing standard and the CCSDS Blue Books – are all freely available. Remember that whatever these say, your launch provider's payload user guide takes precedence.

CubeSat specifications

  • CubeSat Design Specification Rev. 14.1 PDF – Cal Poly SLO. The baseline CubeSat specification: envelope and rail geometry, mass and center-of-mass limits, materials and anodizing, deployment switches, inhibits, and the 30-minute deployable and 45-minute RF quiet periods. Free
  • CubeSat Design Specification Rev. 13 PDF – The previous revision, still worth knowing because much older material (and some deployer documentation) quotes its figures, notably the 1.33 kg/U mass limit
  • ISO 17981:2024 – Space systems: Cube satellite (CubeSat) interface Link – International standard for CubeSat internal interfaces – component to component, platform to payload, umbilical connectors and commercial product datasheets. It explicitly does not cover the CubeSat-to-deployer interface, which stays with the CDS. Paywalled
  • Cal Poly CubeSat Program Link – The source for current CDS revisions and CubeSat program documentation

Deployer manuals and payload user guides

Whatever the CDS says, the document that governs a CubeSat's mechanical and safety design is the deployer manual or payload user guide of the provider it flies with. Two are openly published and make good worked examples of the class:

Testing and environmental verification

Communication protocols and data formats

Systems engineering and project standards

  • NASA Systems Engineering Handbook (NASA/SP-2016-6105 Rev 2) PDF – Requirements, verification and validation, and the Pre-Phase A to Phase F life cycle. Free
  • ECSS standards Link – The European Cooperation for Space Standardization's full standard set, covering engineering, product assurance and management. Many are freely downloadable
  • ECSS-E-ST-70-11C Rev.1 – Space segment operability Link – Requirements for the onboard functions an unmanned spacecraft needs in order to be operable in flight, covering nominal and predefined contingency situations. The standard behind much of what modes, safe mode and FDIR design assumes. Free, registration required
  • NASA Technical Standards Link – Searchable index of NASA's technical standards

Regulatory and spectrum

Know a standard that belongs here? Please contribute.