Mission Control and Ground Station

The telecommand uplink, as well as the telemetry downlink was performed via the ESA Operations Centre in Darmstadt/Germany. During the first hours after launch and during the commissioning phase, additional passes were scheduled via Graz using the UHF Station and its control centre at Inffeldgasse 10 in Graz. In addition, the station acted as backup station for nominal operations.

© TUGraz/IKS

Launch

© ESA/CNES/Arianespace

The launch of OPS-SAT took place for December 18, 2019. The satellite flew as secondary payload onboard of a Soyuz-ST-A /Fregat-M (VS23), launched at Kourou/French Guyana. The target orbit was a circular, polar orbit at an altitude of 515km.

 

Mission success and re-entry

The satellite successfully conducted experiments for over 4.5 years and continued to deliver valuable insights and data even during its reentry and disintegration in Earth’s atmosphere.