Great things come in very small packages. When the Space Launch System--NASA's new heavy-duty rocket--lifts off in 2018, the primary mission will be to put the uncrewed Orion capsule in a safe orbit out past the moon. (Safe being a key word here.) But the secondary part of Exploration Mission-1 will be to launch several tiny satellites, sending them out to the moon, space, and even an asteroid.

Today, NASA announced which of these CubeSats will be on that first mission.

A few, including BioSentinel and LunaH-Map, already had a spot on Exploration Mission-1, but now it's official, and five other projects have gotten the green light as well: