The Naval Research Laboratory designed and developed small instruments for flight on CubeSats to study the Earth’s ionosphere. These instruments have been incorporated into an experiment called the Experiment for Characterizing the Lower Ionosphere and Production of Sporadic-E (ECLIPSE). One instrument is a photometer, called the Triple-Tiny Ionospheric Photometer (Tri-TIP), used to measure the brightness of the O I 135.6 nm emission, which during nighttime is produced primarily by radiative recombination of O+ ions and electrons. At nighttime this emission can be used to infer the distribution of electrons in the ionosphere. A second instrument, called the Triple-Magnesium Ion Photometer (Tri-MIP), is designed to measure the Mg II 280 nm emission, which is produced during the daytime by scattering of sunlight by Mg+ ions in the ionosphere. Mg+ ions are produced by meteoric ablation and also by charge exchange between molecular ions and Mg atoms produced during the meteor ablation. Mg+ ions act as tracers of the dynamical drivers in the E-and F-regions of the ionosphere. Prior measurements of both species have been used to determine the two-dimensional distribution of the ions in the orbit plane of the satellite making the measurements. In this paper, we describe the experiments and some observations of the Tri-TIP and Tri-MIP instruments on the two missions.