THIS PROPOSAL IS FOR WORK ON AN ANALYSIS OF SOLAR FLARE X-RAY TIME PROFILES AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF A HARD X-RAY (>10 KEV) SOLARDEDICATED CUBESAT ENTITLED THE EXPERIMENT FOR X-RAY CHARACTERIZATION AND TIMING (EXACT). THE TIME PROFILE ANALYSIS IS FOCUSED ON EXAMINING SMALL-TIMESCALE (<1 S) FLUCTUATIONS AS A MEANS OF PROBING THE PARTICLE ACCELERATION MECHANISMS ENERGIZING SUPRATHERMAL PARTICLES WITHIN A SOLAR FLARE. IT WILL PRIMARILY UTILIZE DATA FROM THE FERMI GAMMA-RAY BURST MONITOR AND KONUS-WIND FLARE CATALOGS AS THESE CONSIST OF HIGH-TIME PRECISION X-RAY DATA FROM TWO DIFFERENT SPACECRAFTS. ADDITIONALLY THE KONUS-WIND FLARE CATALOG HAS BEEN UNDERUSED AND UNDERSTUDIED DUE TO THE DIFFICULTY IN OBTAINING DATA FROM IT. IN RECENT YEARS THE CATALOG HAS BECOME FAR MORE AVAILABLE TO OTHER RESEARCHERS ALLOWING FOR STUDIES OF SINGULAR SOLAR FLARES FROM TWO DIFFERENT X-RAY INSTRUMENTS. THE ANALYSIS ITSELF IS FOCUSED ON CORRELATING THE TIMESCALES OF THESE FLUCTUATIONS TO THE ACCELERATION TIMESCALES CALLED FOR BY VARIOUS PARTICLE ACCELERATION MECHANISMS. DETERMINING THE PROCESSES DRIVING PARTICLE ACCELERATION WITHIN SOLAR FLARES CAN HELP US TO BETTER UNDERSTAND THE GLOBAL ENERGETICS OF THESE FLARES WHICH IN TURN WOULD HELP US BETTER PREDICT THEM. THE KNOWLEDGE OF WHICH MECHANISMS ARE PREDOMINANTLY AT WORK CAN HELP TO FORGE AND REFINE NEW SPACE WEATHER PREDICTION MODELS AS WELL AS TACKLING AN ONGOING MYSTERY WITHIN HIGH-ENERGY SOLAR FLARE RESEARCH (WHAT IS ACCELERATING THESE PARTICLES?). THE CUBESAT PROJECT IS BASED UPON DEVELOPING A SOLAR-OPTIMIZED HARD XRAY SPECTROMETER WITH HIGH-TIME PRECISION AS A MEANS OF SUPPLEMENTING THIS STUDY AND ACTING AS A PRECURSOR FOR FUTURE SOLAR-DEDICATED X-RAY MISSIONS. THE PROJECT WILL DEMONSTRATE A NEW DETECTOR SYSTEM DEVELOPED BY STUDENTS THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA THE CSI (TL) INCIDENT ENERGY SPECTROMETER (CITIES). THIS DETECTOR SYSTEM IS OPTIMIZED TO WORK WITH CUBESAT PLATFORMS AND COULD BE A PRECURSOR TO FUTURE MISSIONS UTILIZING AN ARRAY OF CUBESATS TO GREATLY IMPROVE OUR MONITORING OF HIGH-ENERGY SOLAR EMISSION. AS THE MISSION WILL FLY NEAR SOLAR MINIMUM THERE WILL BE PERIODS OF NO FLARING ACTIVITY. IN THESE TIMES THE CUBESAT WILL DEMONSTRATE A SPACECRAFT RANGING TECHNIQUE ALLOWING FOR POSITIONING INDEPENDENT OF THE NASA DEEP SPACE NETWORK. THIS TECHNIQUE WILL UTILIZE SIGNALS OF OPPORTUNITY SUCH AS GAMMA-RAY BURSTS AS WELL AS PERIODIC SIGNALS FROM PULSARS AS THE BASIS OF ITS POSITION DETERMINATION. SUCH A TECHNIQUE WOULD GREATLY AID IN ALL FUTURE SPACE MISSIONS AS WE SEND SPACECRAFT FURTHER FROM EARTH WITH GREATER REGULARITY.