Mission type Technology Website At ESA.int Launch mass ~6 kg (13 lb) | Operator ESA Bus 3U CubeSat | |
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Dimensions 96 mm × 96 mm × 490 mm
(3.8 in × 3.8 in × 19.3 in) Manufacturer Graz University of Technology Similar Olympus‑1, ISEE‑2, European Retrievable Carrier, Lunar Lander, Advanced Telescope for High E | ||
OPS-SAT is the first CubeSat currently being built by the European Space Agency (ESA) and it is intended to demonstrate the improvements in mission control capabilities that will arise when satellites can fly more powerful on-board computers. It consists of a satellite which contains an experimental computer that is ten times more powerful than any current ESA spacecraft. The OPS-SAT mission has the very clear objective to break the cycle of “has never flown, will never fly” in the area of satellite control.
Contents
OPS-SAT shall provide an in-orbit test-bed environment for the deployment of different experiments to test new protocols, new algorithms and new techniques. The satellite is being designed to be robust and no Single point of failure should exist, therefore it shall be always possible to recover the spacecraft if something goes wrong with one of the software experiments. The robustness of the basic satellite itself will allow ESA flight control teams to upload and try out new, innovative control software submitted by experimenters.
Payload
Communications
