They Look Like UFOs, But DiskSats Are A New Way To Get Satellites In Orbit

They Look Like UFOs, But DiskSats Are a New Way to Get Satellites in Orbit

Last updated: 2025/12/21 at 7:28 PM

News Room Published 21 December 2025

NASA has funded a mission to deploy what might resemble UFOs but are actually new spacecraft that offer a novel way to streamline satellite designs.

Circular and flat, these DiskSats are designed to pack more satellites into a rocket launch. NASA funded the project “to lower mission costs and expand access to space,” it tweeted.

The DiskSats originate from The Aerospace Corporation in El Segundo, California, which aims to launch large satellite constellations into low-Earth orbit at lower costs. “The whole genesis of this was, ‘Hey, we want to populate a constellation on orbit with many satellites, quickly and cheaply,'” the company’s principal investigator, Catherine Venturini, says in a blog post.

(Credit: The Aerospace Corporation )

The DiskSats are an alternative to CubeSats, the box-shaped, mass-produced satellites, which were also designed to reduce costs. The problem is that CubeSats face certain constraints. “Their small form limits available surface area, restricts power generation capacity, and reduces aperture space for large antennas or scientific instruments requiring exposure to space,” the agency wrote in its own blog post.

In contrast, DiskSats feature a wider surface area to fit the various components, including solar panels. “Another advantage the shape brings is reduced drag,” Aerospace Corporation says.

Deployment of sats

(Credit: The Aerospace Corporation)

The flat design is similar to SpaceX’s Starlink satellites, which already number over 9,000 in Earth’s orbit. To install them in Falcon 9 rockets, the company has been stacking the satellites on top of each other, enabling SpaceX to send up large batches per launch.

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Earlier this morning, the Aerospace Corporation sent up its first four DiskSats, each with a 40-inch diameter, as part of a demonstration mission to test the technology. They were launched through Rocket Lab and successfully deployed moments later, according to a company tweet.

The Aerospace Corporation plans to test the performance and maneuverability of the four satellites in low-Earth orbit and “very low Earth orbit,” at altitudes of under 350 kilometers above the planet’s surface. The smaller satellite design likely means they can’t pack as much equipment on board. Still, the goal is to work with clients on leveraging the DiskSats for purposes including communications, navigation, and weather-related missions.