The 2003 Eurockot Pioneer CubeSats (XI-IV, CUTE-1, CanX-1, AAUSAT, DTUsat-1 & QuakeSat)

Engineering breakdown and orbital outcomes of the six inaugural CubeSats launched on 30 June 2003 from Plesetsk Cosmodrome aboard a Eurockot Breeze-KM vehicle.

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SQ-MSN-009
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22 Oct 2026
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The First CubeSat Launch (30 June 2003)#

Four years after the CubeSat standard was proposed[1][2], the first six CubeSats—five 1U university spacecraft and one 3U commercial/Stanford mission—launched on 30 June 2003 from Plesetsk Cosmodrome into an 820 km Sun-synchronous orbit.

References

  1. [1]Heidt, H., Puig-Suari, J., Moore, A. S., Nakasuka, S., & Twiggs, R. J. (2000). CubeSat: a new generation of picosatellite for education and industry low-cost space experimentation. In: 14th Annual AIAA/USU Conference on Small Satellites (SSC00-V-5).
  2. [2]Puig-Suari, J., Turner, C., & Ahlgren, W. (2001). Development of the standard CubeSat deployer and a CubeSat class PicoSatellite. In: 2001 IEEE Aerospace Conference Proceedings, vol. 1 (347–353).doi:10.1109/AERO.2001.931726
  3. [3]Libre Space Foundation. (2026). SatNOGS DB — satellite and transmitter database.db.satnogs.org(accessed 20 October 2026)
  4. [4]Swartwout, M. (2013). The first one hundred CubeSats: a statistical look. Journal of Small Satellites, 2, 213–233.
  5. [5]nadir lab. (2026). PocketQube picosatellites: A review of standards, mission trends and miniaturization constraints, with lessons learned from Grizu-263A, Türkiye’s first PocketQube [Preprint]. nadir lab.Read on nadir lab.

Cite this SatWiki entry

@misc{nadirlab2026pioneer,
  author       = {{nadir lab.}},
  title        = {{The 2003 Eurockot Pioneer CubeSats (XI-IV, CUTE-1, CanX-1, AAUSAT, DTUsat-1 \& QuakeSat)}},
  year         = {2026},
  month        = oct,
  howpublished = {nadir lab. SatWiki SQ-MSN-009 (Rev. 1)},
  url          = {https://nadirlab.space/en/wiki/pioneer-cubesats-2003/}
}