Dear OPS-SAT Experimenter community,
We are happy to announce that up to this date we count already over 200 experiments registered with us. In addition to publications on the spacecraft itself, more and more papers are being released featuring experiment results gained by OPS-SAT, and by now the mission has been subject to numerous international conferences and featured in prestigious journals.
With the 3 year anniversary of OPS-SAT in orbit coming up, we have put together a list of publications, visualizing the scientific impact of the mission, which you can find [[here|https://opssat1.esoc.esa.int/projects/publications]] [1].
Thank you for the successful cooperation, we are looking forward to further experiments,
Best wishes,
The OPS-SAT Team
[1] https://opssat1.esoc.esa.int/projects/publications
Dear OPS-SAT Experimenter community,
We are glad to announce that a new campaign [1] dedicated to exploring and supporting new experiment ideas on OPS-SAT was just launched on the OSIP platform!
Experiment proposals can be submitted until May 23rd and selected ideas will receive funding for the development and deployment of the experiment.
OSIP has reversed the classic approach of engaging with ESA. Whereas the Agency typically invites industry and academia to apply to work on specific research or technology developments, OSIP seeks ideas from the wider community and then ESA helps find the most appropriate mechanism to support the implementation of the most novel ideas.
Update: Existing OPS-SAT experimenters are also encouraged to apply. The only logical restriction is that if your experiment was already executed 1 or more times on-board the spacecraft, then the proposal submitted to the OSIP platform should be an evolution.
Kind regards,
OPS-SAT FCT
[1] https://ideas.esa.int/servlet/hype/IMT?documentTableId=45087640620583691&userAction=Browse&templateName=&documentId=44b778b1fd71bbce5e75cee6bde9da8b
Dear OPS-SAT Experiment Community,
I am writing with the great news that the first non-ESA experiments have been executed on OPS-SAT and the results are impressive. ESA released the following web article today. There are lots of links in that page to the experimenter's own press releases, the photo archive on Flickr etc.
https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Operations/Interplanetary_internet_cameras_in_space_ESA_s_OPS-SAT_first_results
It will not be the last as we have quite a few experiments in the pipeline.
I would also like to draw your attention to the experimenter portal https://opssat1.esoc.esa.int/ - which Georges Labrèche has updated with some latest news and presentations. There is some good information there - including a video of a live pass the team made at the Open Source Cubesat Workshop in December and demos.
Finally I would like to remind you that experiments are entirely free up until Nov 2021. After that point ESOC cannot continue to operate the mission for free and so we will be asking the Member States to contribute. If we do not cover the cost somehow then the mission will be terminated. We will not charge the experimenters of course but if any of you know your ESA delegate (please find out who they are, as I cannot tell you) then please let them know what you are doing on this platform and that you would like it to continue after Nov 2021. It would be such a shame to turn off the mission when we still have not fully realised its potential! To help communicate this, I attach a simple concept presentation that you can distribute. It is also on the experimenter portal.
All the remains is for me to wish you all a merry Christmas and thank you for keeping faith with us during those difficult days in the commissioning. With your help, 2021 will the year of OPS-SAT-1 - and maybe the start of OPS-SAT-2!
Best regards,
Dave Evans
