The nanosats weigh less than 9 pounds each and are 30 x 10 x 10 centimeters in size, scheduled to launch in the summer of 2013 on the ORS-3 mission designed to collect and transmitting weather data. To gather data to support weather prediction and assessments, each nanosat contains a sensor and GPS receiver. Each also has a miniature S-band transceiver to downlink spacecraft and mission data at one megabit per second.

"The SENSE nanosats offer customers an affordable, operationally robust option to conduct military missions using spacecraft no larger than a standard loaf of bread," Boeing Phantom Works Advanced Space & Intelligence Systems Director Bruce Chesley said in a statement.