We are excited to share with you the news of SatNOGS achieving yet another milestone, as it has reached 7 million observations.
On the 8th of January, observation #7000000 was uploaded on the SatNOGS Network by station 901 – VE2WI – UHF in Quebec, Canada. The observation was scheduled by Laurent Beaudet, the station owner, receiving data from AMSAT-OSCAR 7. Though the seven millionth observation is of a rather poor quality, it is, in fact, coming from a satellite that has been making its way through space for almost 50 years.
Satellite AMSAT-OSCAR 7 was launched on November 15, 1974, and by mid-1981, it had been rendered non-operational due to battery failure. It was almost 20 years later, in 2002, that it was brought back to life when one of the shorted batteries became an open circuit, and the satellite could operate again. This time using solar panels. What this means is that when in eclipse, the satellite cannot supply enough power to the transmitter to modulate the signal. When continuously illuminated, though, the mode will alternate between A and B every 24 hours. AMSAT-OSCAR 7 became SatNOGS‘s 7 millionth observation 20 years after its resurrection and 49 years after its deployment.
SatNOGS has achieved yet another astonishing Milestone, all thanks to its community. This is the result of the collaborative work and the continuous efforts made by hundreds of ground station owners around the globe. They are the ones who have made this milestone possible by scheduling observations, tracking satellites and, in general, dedicating time and effort to the success of the SatNOGS project.
So let us celebrate this Milestone by taking a closer look at some of the highlights of 2022 for SatNOGS and for everything the SatNOGS Community has achieved in the past year.
SatNOGS Highlights 2022
SatNOGS in Numbers
- Hunting satellites of 26 different launches: the SatNOGS Network was there at almost all the big launches of the year, ready to schedule observations and hunt satellites. Among the launches for which we scheduled observations were SpaceX’s Transporter 3, Transporter 4 and Transporter 5, ELaNa 38, ELaNa41, JAXA’s JSSOD20, 21, 22, 23, ISRO, Jielong-3, Vega C the Inaugural Flight, S4 Crossover – Astra Rocket LV0009, Chang Zheng-2D, and Firefly Aerospace’s ToTheBlack mission.
- Tracking more than 830 satellites.
- Making over 1.670.000 observations, an average of 4.5K observations per day.
- Scheduling a sizeable number of observations per deployment ….(There was a time in 2022 that we scheduled over 1800 observations for the first 48 hours of a launch…)
- On average, receiving the first signals of the satellites within the first few hours of their deployment.
- Contributing to missions with more than 11K observations.. the GASPACS mission was one such mission…
- Collaborating with International satellite teams from over 15 countries (Brasil, USA, Spain, Italy, France, Luxemburg, Germany, Finland, Turkey, Israel, UAE, India, Nepal, Korea, Taiwan, and Japan) and more than 20 Universities from around the world.
Celebrations and Goodbyes…
In 2022, SatNOGS and its Community celebrated anniversaries together as satellites continued their lonely yet magical journey through space.
and…
And bid goodbye to satellites that travelled in space and re-entered gloriously.
and
But we were not saddened…
As many of the satellites provided us with wonderful images before they disappeared…
RamSat, a CubeSat built by the students of the Robertsville Middle School in Oak Ridge (Oak Ridge Public Schools), Tennessee, USA, with the supervision and mentorship of the Oak Ridge National Lab, provided us with some breathtaking photos…
and enlighted us with their insightful analyses that taught us beautiful things about space and satellites. The RamSat team was kind enough to share with the SatNOGS Community their findings during RamSat’s quest in space. The team shared some detailed analyses and helpful lessons learned. Among these analyses falls their input on the extreme temperatures RamSat experienced in space due to the intense conditions. https://community.libre.space/t/ramsat-mission-progress/8219/52.
Tracking our very own…
Among the year’s highlights was the return to space of the Libre Space Foundation. It was a moment of great excitement for the LSF team to track the QUBIK mission. To hunt the PICOBUS deployer and PocketQubes, QUBIK-3 and QUBIK-4, as they made it to orbit onboard Firefly Aerospace’s Alpha Flight 2.
Art and SatNOGS
A few months before 2022 was gone, Nye Thompson, a visual artist and a member of the SatNOGS Community, began working on an experimental art project using SatNOGS.
The project uses SSTV transmitted via a satellite as a way to generate and distribute new images. It’s also a kind of networked performance with the satellite.
You can find more details about how you can contribute to SatNOGS art in the dedicated thread on the Community Forum.
Wrapping up …
2022 was a great year for SatNOGS as the Network, and the DB continued to grow, and its Community kept expanding. SatNOGS has now proudly reached over 400 ground stations spread in 50 countries across the globe, having tracked 1177 satellites, 2180 transmitters, 165 million data frames and 7 million observations. It thus remains the world’s biggest open-source network of satellite ground stations.
Led by a Community that fosters collaboration, inclusivity and diversity, SatNOGS welcomes everyone who wishes to contribute their time, knowledge and expertise to the project. A project built and developed to enhance scientific research, knowledge about Space and to enable everyone interested, to explore Space for peaceful purposes, as the Libre Space Manifesto states explicitly.
You are welcome to join the project too, and be part of our next Milestone as we work hard to make…..
