Thermal-infrared measurements underpin many essential Earth science observations, including land-surface temperature, evapotranspiration and agricultural water use, volcanic and wildfire activity, and geologic and mineral mapping. Yet their spatial resolution has improved little in decades, because the sensitive detectors involved must be cryogenically cooled, which has traditionally required large, costly instruments on flagship missions.
ACMES, a NASA ESTO InVEST CubeSat mission led by Utah State University, changes that equation by validating the Active Thermal Architecture (ATA): a compact, low-power pumped fluid loop and deployable steerable radiator that delivers cryogenic-class cooling on a small-satellite platform. ATA enables the mission’s flagship instrument, HyTI 2.0, a long-wave infrared hyperspectral thermal imager developed with the University of Hawaiʻi (HIGP/HSFL), which is integrating and testing the payload. With active cooling, HyTI 2.0 can produce Landsat-class (~45 m) imagery in roughly two dozen narrow thermal bands from a small satellite, a capability not previously available at this scale.
ACMES also flies two student-built experiments, making workforce development a primary mission goal: FINIS, a compact infrared spectrometer for methane point-source detection, and PLAID, a planar plasma diagnostic for ionospheric measurements. Students contribute across the spacecraft’s development under experienced-engineer supervision.
By retiring the risk of compact active cooling in orbit, ACMES opens a path to affordable, higher-revisit thermal-infrared missions and constellations for water resources, agriculture, and hazard monitoring. This presentation focuses on the Earth science benefits active cooling unlocks, the measurements HyTI 2.0 makes practical on small platforms, the role of the student-built payloads, and the mission’s readiness and path to flight as an InVEST technology-validation demonstration.