""LOGAN, Utah — There is big news on the small satellite front. From super-secret agencies and the U.S. military to academia and private firms, as well as world space agencies and NASA, ultra-small satellites are the big thing.
In sizing up "smallsats," there are a range of classifications in the less-than-500- kilogram department, be they minisatellites, microsatellites, nanosatellites, picosatellites, palm-size CubeSats, even the diminutive Femto satellite, weighing in at less than 100 grams.
Cornell University has begun to delve into a postage stamp-size "satellite on a chip" design, called Sprite, envisioning a swarm of these tiny probes exploring planetary atmospheres for organic compounds""
http://www.space.com/13283-small-satellites-cubesats-research-technology.html
