Small Satellites, Big Impact — MC3 Network Inspires Space Innovation at NPS

On Jan. 14, 2025, a commercial SpaceX rocket successfully launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, carrying an NPS small satellite, also known as a CubeSat, called Otter. Two hours later, a small team of NPS researchers huddled inside the school’s Satellite Operations Center (SOC), the hub for interacting with NPS assets in space as well as the central node of its globe-spanning Mobile CubeSat Command and Control (MC3) ground network.