Blue Cubed

Blue Cubed LLC is an American small satellite communications company founded in 2018 in Longmont, Colorado, developing modular laser optical and radio frequency communications hardware for CubeSats and small satellites with an emphasis on low size, weight, and power (SWaP) designs. The company's flagship product, Cobalt, is a laser optical communication terminal (OCT) weighing 5 kg and consuming 30 W that achieves gigabit-per-second data link rates with an integrated gimbal and star cameras for autonomous self-orientation and pointing. Blue Cubed also produces Bluefin, an X-band RF transmitter for CubeSats supporting data rates up to 25 Mbps in EESS and Space Research Service frequency bands. The Bluefin transmitter has been flight-demonstrated in orbit on the AFRL Ascent satellite achieving 5 Mbps from GEO orbit, on the AFRL UNP Maxwell satellite delivering 25 Mbps in LEO, and on NASA's CU-E3 spacecraft for deep space communications capability. Blue Cubed is developing Space Development Agency (SDA)-compatible optical terminals for military space missions and has received approximately $1.1 million in US government SBIR funding across Phase I and Phase II awards since 2019.