The UHF/VHF antenna that was used for our PICSAT nanosatellite was re-installed on a new mast along a wall of the Great Solar Telescope in Meudon. But why listening to satellites in Low Earth Orbit ?
The ground segment is a major part of any space mission. Even if the operations are managed by a space agency or sub-contracted to a partner, the customer must remain in the loop, as close as possible from the operations. In our nanosatellite projects, the customer is the scientific team. In our opinion at CENSUS, we have to contribute to the reception of satellite data (telemetry and observations), then, get prepared and sometimes send by ourselves the needed telecommands during operations and in case of an anomaly. Getting ready for this assignment requires time, tests and practice. This is the reason why we connect our station "SSOL" to the global network SATNogs whenever we do not operate our own satellite. We have run 9000 observations of LEO satellites in one and a half year, with 90% success rate, and we have even got a friendly Gold Award by MIR-SAT1 project for our contribution. After moving to its new location, SSOL is still needing some maintenance work and should be back to operations by spring 2022.
