ESA’s OPS-SAT Mission: Powered by GNU Radio

Abstract

OPS-SAT is a mission by the European Space Agency that is aiming to establish an open hardware and software innovation platform in Low Earth Orbit. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the beginnings of the OPS-SAT operational phase and how it was made possible by the GNU Radio project. A GNU Radio reference implementation published by the Flight Control Team resulted in beacon reports from Radio Amateurs shortly after satellite deployment. OPS-SAT operations were initially carried out through the dedicated stations in Ireland and Austria, which fully or partly rely on GNU Radio for the signal processing backend. The Launch and Early Operations Phase (LEOP) has been completed and platform commissioning is in progress.