On 30 March, NASA announced that it will be funding the development of six 6U-cubesats as part of its Sun Radio Interferometry Experiment (SunRISE) mission. The mission worth US$62.6 million will be launched on its way to a near geostationary orbital position, cadging a ride on a geostationary orbit communications satellite built by Maxar. The SunRISE spacecraft will then be released by a deployer on the satellite called the Payload Orbital Delivery System. Once on station the six satellites will fly in formation about 10 km apart acting as a giant radio telescope in order to study the radio effects caused by solar storms and pinpoint their source on the solar disk.
