Discovery potential in the era of Small Sats

It’s never been easier to launch something into space. It’s never been cheaper to get a spacecraft. In this new era of space accessibility, the astronomical community has an exciting opportunity to advance space sciences through small payloads and telescopes on small sats. In this talk, I will describe a bit about the current landscape, provide some examples from a cost and schedule perspective, and describe my own involvement in several smaller missions, both at the concept stage and being built. I will touch on how missions of this type can contribute to science questions across astronomy, with a focus on my own interests in CGM science and molecular cloud lifetimes and formation, and how those interests can be explored now with smallsats. I will focus especially on the Aspera Mission, a $20M USD mission funded by NASA to observe nearby galaxy circumgalactic media via extreme ultraviolet OVI emission.