Lessons and Celebrations: the closure of Fly Your Satellite! 2
In brief
The second edition of the Fly Your Satellite! programme comes to a closure with a week of presentations. During the second session of the Lessons Learned Workshop the EIRSAT-1, ISTSat-1 and 3Cat-4 teams have retraced the major steps of their mission development, presented the current mission status and the lessons learned throughout the years in front of an audience composed of ESA experts and ESA Academy student teams.
In-depth
Fly Your Satellite! is an educational programme for university and other tertiary education student teams that are developing pico- or nanosatellites (CubeSats or PocketQubes) with mainly educational purposes.
In the second edition of the Fly Your Satellite! programme four different teams took part: EIRSAT-1, ISTSat-1, LEDSAT and 3Cat-4. LEDSAT is an Italian 1U CubeSat which has been launched the 17th of August 2021, while the remaining three were more recently launched. EIRSAT-1 reached orbit on December 1st 2023 , and a few months later, on July 9th 2024, 3Cat-4 and ISTSAT-1 were launched as part of Ariane 6 inaugural flight mission. These three teams were invited to the Lessons Learned Workshop to present the outcome of their missions, and the lessons learned they acquired throughout the years in front of an audience composed of ESA experts and ESA Academy student teams. The LEDSAT team, having already launched their satellite, already had the opportunity to discuss the outcome of their mission. They shared their most important steps during the programme, highlighting the major milestones achieved and the challenges they overcame, from the mission critical spin-up of their spacecraft up, to the more educational ones, like the lack of promotional stickers during events!
EIRSAT-1 is Ireland’s first satellite, developed by the students at University College Dublin. The 2U is equipped with three experiments developed entirely by them, from the detection of gamma ray bursts to the testing of a new method of controlling the spacecraft attitude using Earth’s magnetic field. The 2U is currently operating nominally, providing important data to the students, marking an incredible success for the team.
ISTSat-1 is the first-ever CubeSat built by a university student team in Portugal. The 1U CubeSat mission has been developed by the students of the Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon. The spacecraft serves as a demonstrator for an Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) aircraft detection technology. The spacecraft is currently operating in orbit but, due to communication issues, the team is encountering problems in properly receiving data from the it. To address this, they are working on solutions both on a software and hardware level, including upgrading their ground station.
3Cat-4 is a 1U CubeSat developed by students working in the UPC NanoSat Lab, an initiative from Spain’s Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. The mission aims to show the capabilities of CubeSats to provide Earth Observation (EO) services using a payload developed entirely in-house. After deployment, the team established communication with the spacecraft and successfully decoded its telemetry, already demonstrating the amazing achievement of designing and building a satellite that survives launch and operates in space. Unfortunately, the decoded data revealed a problem with power generation and storage, making it impossible for the spacecraft to continue operating in orbit. Despite the setback, the ground team undertook a robust failure analysis and while it’s not always possible to 100% confirm the reason for failure inflight a highly probable root cause has been identified. As a result changes have already been made to future UPC satellites in development, and this lesson may well serve to save future missions.
Despite experiencing both successes and setbacks, the knowledge gained throughout the Fly Your Satellite! 2 programme remains invaluable. Every challenge faced and lesson learned has contributed to a deeper understanding of spacecraft development, offering insights that not only benefit current missions and pave the way for future teams but also provide critical expertise that can be applied to other missions. Applying this knowledge to ongoing and future projects strengthens the educational value of the programme, ensuring practical benefits for both students and the space sector.
Furthermore, the launch of these three missions stresses once more the importance of the radio amateur community which supports the operations of these spacecrafts by providing important data downlinked during their own operations.
Finally, the students’ opinions and perspectives also serves as powerful insights for potential improvements in the programme, which is currently at the beginning of its fourth cycle, with parallel initiatives ongoing like Design Booster and Test Opportunities.
If you are interested in learning more about opportunities like Fly Your Satellite! you can check out the ESA Academy current opportunities website to find out more.