First Earth-Imaging CubeSat with Harmonic Diffractive Lens

Launched in March 2021, the 3U CubeSat nanosatellite was first ever to use an ultra-lightweight harmonic diffractive lens for Earth remote sensing. We describe platform we used; our 10 mm diameter and 70 focal length synthesis, design, manufacturing; a custom 3D-printed camera housing built from zero-thermal-expansion metal alloy; on-Earth image post-processing with convolutional neural network resulting images comparable quality classical refractive optics used sensing before.