CubeSats for Studying Mercury's Extreme Temperature Fluctuations: A Hosted Payload

Mercury experiences extreme temperature swings from over 430°C in sunlight to below −180°C at night, making it one of the most challenging environments for spacecraft. This paper explores how a CubeSat could be designed to survive and study these conditions using passive thermal control, fault recovery systems, and smart scheduling when integrated as a hosted payload within a larger spacecraft. The payload includes infrared cameras and hyperspectral imagers to observe surface features and temperature changes. All subsystems are selected and arranged to meet CubeSat Design Specification (CDS) standards while staying within mass and power limits. Although no physical observations are included, the concept is supported by material properties, subsystem analysis, and mission logic. Future work will focus on simulating performance, testing AI-based fault handling, and scaling the mission to a CubeSat constellation for broader coverage.