The SatNOGS Network has achieved yet another Milestone! It has reached its ninth millionth observation, and we are wholeheartedly grateful to the entire Community for this achievement! 

Nine million Observations

On the 7th of February 2024, observation #9000000 was uploaded on the SatNOGS Network by station 1861 – LW2DYB in Argentina. The observation was scheduled by Julio LW2DYB, receiving data from satellite Green Diamond. The ninth millionth observation is of good quality.

SatNOGS achieved another milestone!

Every SatNOGS achievement results from 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 (and everything related to SatNOGS) possible; by scheduling observations, tracking satellites, and, in general, dedicating time and effort to the success of the SatNOGS project. 

Everything accomplished so far is thanks to you all!

SatNOGS in Numbers

The SatNOGS network counts over

• 450+ fully operational ground stations and 150+ in testing mode
• The observations come from 1730+ satellites and 3180+ transmitters
• Delivering over 218M data frames
  

As the numbers show, SatNOGS has significantly expanded and has become the biggest, global, open-source network of satellite ground stations. 

Outer Space Open For All (The Libre Space Manifesto)

All Libre Space Foundation’s projects are built to enhance scientific research and knowledge about Space and to enable everyone interested in exploring Space for peaceful purposes. These values are also at the core of the Libre Space Manifesto. 

Outer Space Open For All (the SatNOGS way)

Abiding by the Libre Space Manifesto values, SatNOGS is a project that not only is built and developed in a modular, open-source way, but the data collected is also distributed openly. The SatNOGS community offers support and guidance in onboarding new members and even helps satellite teams with their missions. Throughout its years of operation, SatNOGS has helped hundreds of satellite teams worldwide identify and track their satellite successfully. They assist missions worldwide in running their experiments and tests and successfully completing their missions. The community can help you communicate with your satellite as it schedules around 10,000 daily observations and guides you throughout the onboarding process. Guide you through the actions you need to take and help you with the dashboard of your mission, too. All you need to do is contact the SatNOGS team early on and provide the necessary details and information about your mission.

Want to join the SatNOGS community and be part of the next Milestone?

The SatNOGS community is open and inclusive, welcoming everyone who wishes to contribute their time, knowledge and expertise to the project. If SatNOGS has sparked your interest, and you want to learn more,

• Dive into the SatNOGS wiki
• Ask questions in our community forums
• Join the conversation on the SatNOGS chat

Join SatNOGS now and help make Outer Space Open for All!

We are excited to announce that we are celebrating yet another significant milestone for the SatNOGS project as the SatNOGS DB stored its 200 millionth data frame!!!

The milestone data frame

The 200 millionth frame was received on the 31st of October. It was a frame of satellite 47438 – UVSQ-SAT that was received by ground station 2760 – M0GKK-BB. And it was observation #8429588 for the SatNOGS Network.

We can only be thrilled with the enormity of this massive number, and we are also very grateful for these contributions. Congratulations to all for reaching such a fantastic milestone!

The SatNOGS DB

The SatNOGS DB is a component of the SatNOGS project, and it is a collaborative effort to create a holistic, unified, global database for all the artificial objects in space. A point of reference for all the satellites and spacecraft. Data frames are sent to the SatNOGS DB from stations belonging to the SatNOGS Network, as well as independent stations and telemetry forwarders. The SatNOGS DB receives frames from more than 1500 stations around the globe. Tracking over 1650 satellites and 3040+ transmitters in 50 different modes and ten bands. All these add up to the amazing 200 Million data frames received. Thus constituting the SatNOGS DB, the biggest, open-source and crowd-sourced database for openly distributed satellite data.

The Libre Space Manifesto

Like all the Libre Space Foundation projects, the SatNOGS DB also adheres to the principles of the Libre Space Manifesto. Supporting and promoting Openness (Open development and governance, open data, open-source, and free access to Space) with dedication to enhancing knowledge and scientific research.

The SatNOGS Community

SatNOGS is brought to life and expanding because of the unceasing collaboration, devotion, and ongoing contribution of its community. The latter is comprised of a vast network of space enthusiasts, radio amateurs, university teams, satellite operators and ground station owners. All the members and the open-source supporters who make up the SatNOGS Community add to the project’s success.

To all of you, we are whole-heartedly grateful!

Do you want to join SatNOGS and be part of the next Milestone?

If the SatNOGS project has sparked your interest, and you love space and open-source technologies, then there are many ways you can contribute. You can help with the SatNOGS DB by joining the SatNOGS Network, setting up a station or forwarding the frames to the SatNOGS DB through the SiDS protocol. You can also opt to create decoders to help us decode the load of data received and visualise them on the SatNOGS Dashboard. If you are fluent in Python and/or JS, you can contribute to the satnogs-db web application.

The SatNOGS Community is a global, diverse, inclusive, collaborative, open community that welcomes people from different backgrounds. People who wish to contribute by devoting their valuable time, ideas, knowledge and expertise to the SatNOGS project. If this appeals to you, you can start by checking the SatNOGS knowledge-base wiki. You are also welcome to join our community forums and drop us a line on the chat. Get in touch with us!

We are looking forward to having you onboard the SatNOGS project and community. Join us now so that you are part of our next Milestone!

Thank you!

The SatNOGS Network has achieved yet another amazing Milestone! It has reached its eight millionth observation, and we are deeply grateful to the entire Community for this achievement!

Eight million Observations

On the 11th of August 2023, observation #8000000 was uploaded on the SatNOGS Network by station 2173 – PE0SAT-21 in the Netherlands. The observation was scheduled by Jan Van Gils (PE0SAT), receiving data from satellite TigriSat. The eight millionth observation is of good quality.

It is an observation coming from an operational satellite that has been making its way through space for almost ten years.

TigriSat

TigriSat is a 3U CubeSat built by Iraqi students in collaboration with the La Sapienza University of Rome. Its mission is to detect dust storms over Iraq. For this, the CubeSat features an RGB camera. It was launched into space by the Dniepr launch vehicle from Orenburg, Russia, on June 19, 2014. TigriSat is considered to be Iraq’s first satellite.

SatNOGS achieved another milestone!

We are thrilled that SatNOGS has achieved another astonishing Milestone. Everything accomplished is thanks to the active and vibrant community. As is the case, every SatNOGS achievement results from 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 (and everything) possible by scheduling observations, tracking satellites and, in general, dedicating time and effort to the success of the SatNOGS project.

SatNOGS in Numbers

The SatNOGS network counts over 240+ fully operational ground stations and 150+ in testing mode. The observations come from 1545+ satellites and 2890+ transmitters delivering over 192M data frames. As the numbers show, SatNOGS has significantly expanded and has become the biggest, global, open-source network of satellite ground stations.

Outer Space Open For All (The Libre Space Manifesto)

All Libre Space Foundation’s projects are built to enhance scientific research and knowledge about Space and to enable everyone interested in exploring Space for peaceful purposes. These values are also at the core of the Libre Space Manifesto.

Outer Space Open For All (the SatNOGS way)

Abiding by the Libre Space Manifesto values, SatNOGS is a project that not only is built and developed in a modular, open-source way but also the data collected is distributed openly. The SatNOGS community offers support and guidance in onboarding new members and even helps satellite teams with their missions. Throughout its years of operation, SatNOGS has helped hundreds of Satellite Teams from all over the world to successfully identify and track their satellite. The community and its members assist missions from all corners of the world to run their experiments and tests and successfully complete their missions. Not only can the community help you communicate with your satellite as it schedules around 10,000 observations per day, but it can also guide you throughout the onboarding process. Guide you through the actions you need to take and help you with creating and populating the dashboard of your mission with the data received. All you need to do is contact the SatNOGS team early on and provide the necessary details and information about your mission.

Want to join the SatNOGS community and be part of the next Milestone?

The SatNOGS community is open and inclusive, welcoming everyone who wishes to contribute their time, knowledge and expertise to the project. If SatNOGS has sparked your interest and you want to learn more, check out the SatNOGS wiki knowledge base. You can drop us a line on the community forums and the dedicated SatNOGS chat. We would love to hear from you and have you join the SatNOGS network and community and be part of the next million observations.

Join SatNOGS now and help make Outer Space Open for All!

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…..

Outer Space Open For all!

We are excited to share with you, the new milestone achieved by the SatNOGS network, as it has reached 6.000.000 observations!

On the 27th of May, observation #6000000 was uploaded on the SatNOGS network by station 1936 – VK4JBE-UHF, in Camp Hill, Queensland, Australia . The observation was scheduled by VK4JBE, the station owner, receiving data from AAUSAT-II, a Danish CubeSat of the University of Aalborg. Although the satellite is operational, it seems to be tumbling in space, resulting in generating rather poor observations.

Achieving the astonishing 6 Millionth Observation is a Milestone that SatNOGS has reached thanks to its community. This too 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 take a closer look at some of the astonishing statistics of the project.

SatNOGS in Numbers

The SatNOGS network counts over 265+ fully operational ground stations and 145+ in testing mode. The observations come from 810+ satellites and 1500+ transmitters having delivered over 144M data frames. As the numbers show, SatNOGS has expanded greatly and has become the biggest, global, open-source network of satellite ground stations.

Outer Space Open For all

SatNOGS, much like all Libre Space Foundation’s projects, is built to enhance scientific research, and knowledge about Space, and to enable everyone interested, to explore Space for peaceful purposes. These are all, values that are at the core of the Libre Space Manifesto and guide SatNOGS too.

Thus, the project itself is not only built and developed in a modular, open-source way but the data collected is also distributed openly. The community offers support and guidance in onboarding new members and it even helps satellite teams with their missions. Not only can the community help you communicate with your satellite but they can also guide you throughout the onboarding process. All you need to do is contact the team and provide the necessary details and information about your mission.

Want to join the SatNOGS community and be part of the next million observations?

The SatNOGS community is open and inclusive, welcoming everyone who wishes to contribute their time, knowledge and expertise to the project. If SatNOGS has sparked your interest and you want to find out more, check out the SatNOGS wiki knowledge base. You are welcome to drop us a line on the community forums and the dedicated SatNOGS chat. We would love to hear from you and have you join the SatNOGS network and community.

Join SatNOGS now!

The SatNOGS network has reached 5,000,000 observations and we are thrilled to share this news with you!

More specifically, on the 13th of November, Observation #5000000 was uploaded on the SatNOGS network from the 1126 – notch ground station in New Hampshire, USA. It was scheduled by user kc1ist and received data from satellite ACRUX-1.

And though the 5 millionth Observation was received from a satellite that is no longer active, still there are two interesting stories behind this observation that we would like to share with you. The first story revolves around the satellite ACRUX-1.

SatNOGS and ACRUX-1

Though nowadays, ACRUX-1 might be a “dead” satellite, the truth is that its story is not only fascinating but also indicative of the way the SatNOGS community operates. So let us take a closer look.

ACRUX-1, an Australian, university satellite, was launched at the end of June 2019. Upon deployment, the satellite was operating according to plan and for the first couple of days, everything was working fine. The TLEs had been released early on and the SatNOGS network was as usual, active and ready to track the satellite. But… after a few days of flying in space, ACRUX-1 went dead. And as the days passed and there was no signal received, everyone believed that that was the end for the satellite. The SatNOGS network though continued to keep an eye on ACRUX-1, by continuing to schedule observations.

It wasn’t until 5 months later, in December 2019, when a radio amateur picked up a signal of an “unknown” satellite and posted about it on Twitter https://twitter.com/CX8AF/status/1200969150094618624. A member of the SatNOGS network came across that tweet and recognised the “unknown” satellite. It was, in fact, ACRUX-1, that had begun transmitting again. The network was notified and it began tracking the satellite that inevitably became a priority. SatNOGS started receiving and collecting data about it!! ACRUX-1 was “resurrected” after almost 5 months and its signal was live again. Sadly, that transmission lasted only a couple of hours. One thing to note is that during its “resurrection”, the satellite transmitted in a different frequency than the one in the first place. And though the communication upon resurrection was maintained only for a few hours, the entire process was exciting to follow and monitor.

Before becoming Observation 5M, ACRUX-1 had numerous observations including Observation #1296318 scheduled back in December 2019, during its few hours of “resurrection”.

SatNOGS and the Hackaday Prize

Observation #5000000 was received on a day that is of great significance for SatNOGS. As years ago, on the 13th of November 2014 SatNOGS won the Hackaday Prize, and officially kick-started Libre Space Foundation. Since then and with the continuous help of the diverse community that supports us, SatNOGS has expanded and evolved into a global network, boasting amazing statistics.

More specifically, at present, the SatNOGS network counts over 260+ fully operational ground stations and 120+ in testing mode. The observations come from 710+ satellites and 1340 transmitters having delivered over 122M data frames.

We could not have done this without you!

As is the case with all the amazing milestones that SatNOGS has reached, this too is a result of the collaborative work and the continuous efforts made by hundreds of ground station owners around the globe. They are the ones who contribute to this milestone and to the success of the SatNOGS project itself. By investing their time and effort in this, they schedule, organise and perform satellite observations. It is because of the community and its members that SatNOGS has expanded greatly and has become the biggest collaborative, dynamic, global, open-source network of satellite ground stations.

Do you want to join our community and learn about open-source space technologies?

We always welcome people from around the globe who wish to contribute their time, knowledge and expertise to our projects. If you are interested in joining us check out the SatNOGS knowledge-base wiki and feel free to drop us a line on the community forums and our chat. We would love to hear from you and have you onboard the SatNOGS network and community. Join SatNOGS now and be part of the next million observations!

We are thrilled to have reached 5M observations and we are also grateful to be celebrating it with all of you. All the SatNOGS contributors, satellite operators, radio amateurs, space enthusiasts, university and scientific teams. It is because of you that SatNOGS keeps expanding and growing. Thank you.

SatNOGS station operators, please update your SatNOGS Client Setup!

A new SatNOGS Client update has been released as we get ready for Libre Space Foundation’s QUBIK mission and you must update your SatNOGS ground stations with the latest version of the SatNOGS client software. Detailed instructions on how to update your ground station are available on the SatNOGS Client Setup wiki page. If you encounter a bug, don’t hesitate to file an issue on GitLab.

Here is a list of the new features and fixes:

SatNOGS Client Ansible

• 202109022142
  • Bump ‘satnogs-client’, ‘satnogs-flowgraphs’ and ‘gr-satnogs’ versions

SatNOGS Client

• 1.6
  • Fix GFSK/BPSK flowgraph parameters
  • Add support for satnogs_qubik_telem flowgraph
  • Worker{|Freq|Track}: Refactor class and instance variables
  • gitlab-ci: Fix Security Scanning
  • Bump versions of dependencies
  • Handle exception when trying to get jobs (fixes #390)

SatNOGS Flowgraphs package

• 1.4-1
  • Add flowgraph for the QUBIK 1 & 2
  • Example flowgraph: Remove obsolete variables

gr-satnogs package

• 2.3.1.0-1
  • Bump up version to v2.3.1.0
  • IEEE 802.15.4 variant decoder: Fix RS frame size and CRC
• 2.3.0.0-1
  • Bump up to v2.3.0.0
  • Add hint for Tumbleweed users
  • Add ITPP (IT++) dependency
  • IEEE 802.15.4-like decoder: Add support for RS(255,223)
  • debian: Remove implicit package dependency
  • BER Calculator: Fix CRC and perfromance issue
  • CRC: Fix CRC16-AUG and improve usability
  • Improve QA tests of the whitening class
  • Unified SPUTNIX protocol (USP) encoder
  • Add convolutional encoder and decoder
  • Implement packed_to_unpacked and unpacked_to_packed utilities.
  • Change of libfec based on the changes that exist in gr-ccsds
  • Reed-Muller RM(1, 6) code
  • Mode 6 Encoder for the AX100 modem of GomSpace.
  • Mode 5 Encoder for the AX100 modem of GomSpace.
  • gitlab-ci: Fix Security Scanning

Update instructions
Instructions on how to update can be found under wiki section Updating SatNOGS Client Software.

At Libre Space Foundation we support scientific research and knowledge by creating the conditions for people from around the world to be part of our community, to contribute, and learn. For the third year running, LSF participates in the Google Summer of Code programme as a mentoring organisation. Helping university students gain experience and knowledge by participating and contributing in fascinating projects and by being part of an active, inclusive and collaborative community.

This year, there are 3 projects which were chosen to participate in the programme and in the following weeks we will explore each project in detail. We will have a closer look at each project through the eyes of the students contributing to it.

Improving the Transmission capabilities of gr-satnogs

The first project we will focus on today is a project related to SatNOGS and developed by Michalis Raptakis, a student of Computer Science at the University of Crete. The project aims at improving the transmission capabilities of gr-satnogs. gr-satnogs is the Out-of-tree module of GNU-Radio that is used by SatNOGS (the world’s biggest, open-source network of satellite ground stations). Michalis will focus on expanding the existent transmission capabilities of SatNOGS by improving the gr-satnogs transmission framing API. He will also add new encoders to the existing AX.25 and IEEE 802.15.4, such as the Nanocom AX.100, various AMSAT-related encoders and more.
Αttempts to expand the transmission capabilities of gr-satnogs have already been made in the past. With relevant tests carried out on UPSat while in orbit, and on QUBIK-1 and QUBIK-2 in the lab.

The Progress so far

In the first months of the project, the encoders of Mode 5 and Mode 6 of the AX.100 modem have been implemented. If you want to learn more about the entire encoding process for each mode and how Michalis went about it, you can read this detailed analysis on his blog.

The GSoC experience so far and the steps to follow

The Google Summer of Code programme is a great opportunity for University students to expand their horizons, hone their skills and gain knowledge and expertise. “Participating in an open-source project has proven to be a great experience so far” Michalis Raptakis points out. “I have gained new knowledge both in C++ coding and signal processing, as well as in my participation in a real group project. During this time I have gained more interest so that the work I share with the open-source community is the best possible both in terms of performance and quality. I also believe that I still have a lot to learn so that I can be an active member of both the organization and the open source community and in the future, I can share this knowledge.”

In the weeks to come, Michalis will be working on improving and optimising some of the SatNOGS features available and gaining even more knowledge and experience through the GSoC programme.

*You can read Michalis Raptakis’s blog and follow his progress here.

The SatNOGS network has reached 4.000.000 observations and we are so excited to share this news with you!

On the 25th of April, observation #4000000 was uploaded on the SatNOGS network by station #812-PF_DE_PL_UHF_CROSS_DIPOLE , in Pforzheim, Germany, scheduled by Fredy Damkalis and receiving data from the Argentinian PocketQube DIY-1.

As is the case with all the amazing milestones that SatNOGS has reached, this too is a result of the collaborative work and the continuous efforts made by hundreds of ground station owners around the globe. They are the ones who contribute to this milestone and to the success of the SatNOGS project itself. By investing their time and effort in this, they schedule, organise and perform satellite observations. It is because of the community and its members that SatNOGS has expanded greatly and has become the biggest collaborative, dynamic, global, open-source network of satellite ground stations.

Interesting Statistics

The SatNOGS network counts over 260+ fully operational ground stations and 140+ in testing mode. The observations come from 580+ satellites and 1140+ transmitters having delivered over 100.000.000 data frames.

Do you want to join our community and be part of the next million observations?

We always welcome people who wish to contribute their time, knowledge and expertise to our projects. If you are interested in joining us check out the SatNOGS knowledge-base wiki, and feel free to drop us a line on the community forums and our chat. We would love to hear from you and have you onboard the SatNOGS network and community. 
Join SatNOGS now!

This week marks a significant milestone for the SatNOGS project as the SatNOGS DB stored its 100 millionth dataframe!!! The 100millionth frame was a reception of FALCONSAT-3 by N2ACQ-FM07ag station.

We can only be thrilled with the enormity of this number as data are sent from stations belonging to the SatNOGS network as well as independent stations and telemetry forwarders. We are also very grateful for these partnerships and the ongoing collaborations. Congratulations to all for reaching such an amazing milestone!

The SatNOGS DB receives frames from more than 1500 stations around the globe, tracking over 560 satellites, 1100+ transmitters, and 100 Million dataframes. It is the biggest, open-source and crowd-sourced database for openly distributed satellite data.

Our commitment to the Principles of Openness (Open development and governance, open-data, open-source, free access to Space) as stated explicitly in the Libre Space Manifesto, and our devotion to supporting knowledge and scientific research fuel this project. However, SatNOGS is brought to life and expanding because of the unceasing collaboration, dedication and ongoing contribution of our vast network of Space enthusiasts, university teams, satellite operators, ground station owners, and last but not least radio amateurs; all the members and the open-source supporters who make up the SatNOGS community and add to the project’s success.

Do you want to join SatNOGS and be part of the next Milestone?

If you find the SatNOGS project interesting there are many ways you can contribute. You can opt for helping with the SatNOGS DB, either by joining the SatNOGS network, setting up a station or forwarding the frames to the SatNOGS DB through the SiDS protocol. You can also opt for creating decoders to help us decode the load of data received and visualize them to the SatNOGS Dashboard. If you are fluent in Python and/or JS, you can contribute to the satnogs-db web application.

We always welcome people who wish to contribute bringing their time, ideas, knowledge and expertise to our projects. If this sounds interesting to you, you can start by checking the SatNOGS knowledge-base wiki. You are also welcome to join our community forums and drop us a line on the chat.

We are looking forward to having you onboard the SatNOGS project and community. Join us now so that you are part of our next Milestone!

Thank you!!

The time has come to update your SatNOGS ground-stations with the latest version of the SatNOGS Client software. Detailed instructions on how to update your ground-station are available at the SatNOGS Client Setup wiki page. If you encounter a bug, don’t hesitate to file an issue in GitLab.

While this release is maintenance focused, see below for a detailed manifest of this update:

SatNOGS Software Manifest

• SatNOGS Client Ansible
  • Version: 202012231828 2
  • Changelog
    • satnogs-radio: Bump ‘satnogs-flowgraphs’ version and its dependencies
• SatNOGS Flowgraphs
  • Version: 1.3-1
  • Changelog
    • Adapt to the new whitening API that sets from the constructor the bit order
• gr-satnogs
  • Version: 2.2.0.0
  • Changelog
    • New Features
      • Use C++11 lambdas instead of boost::bind(). This will allow compilation in recent versions of boost
      • Support for CRC16 AUG-CCITT
      • Add support for 0 length preambles at the IEEE 802.15.4 decoder
      • Add option at the IEEE 802.15.4 decoder to drop the invalid frames
      • Add support for error correction (up to 1 bit) at the AX.25 decoder
      • Whitening class now accepts at the constructor the bit alignment (MS or LS bit first)
      • Dropdown style selection of CRC algorithms in the GRC. The field is yet editable for custom definitions
      • Drop obsolete C-like code and make it object oriented
    • Bug Fixes
      • Fix AX100 metadata generation, in case no preamble is used (frames using SFD only)
      • Fix image generation at the SSTV
      • Fix UDP message sink to accept both pmt::blob() and pmt::dict()
      • Simplify the LO compensation
      • Fix AX.25 decoder producing too many invalid frames
      • Fix sensitivity of the AX.25 decoder. The decoder can now handle frames starting with only one AX.25 SYNC flag
      • Fix stdout output of the message sink block

We are excited and thrilled to announce that the SatNOGS network has reached its 3.000.000th observation on the 16th of October!

Observation #3000000 was uploaded on the SatNOGS Network by station #704- kc1ist in Somerville, Massachusetts, USA, operated by kc1ist receiving data from the  XW-2E picosatellite.

The 3.000.000th observation is a result of the continuous efforts of hundreds of ground station owners around the world. They are the ones scheduling, organising and performing the satellite observations. They all make up SatNOGS, the collaborative and dynamic, open-source network of satellite ground stations.

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It was in May 2020 when we announced the two projects that Libre Space Foundation would have under its mentorship as part of the Google Summer of Code. A few weeks ago we presented to you the first of the two projects of this year’s GSoC 2020 titled Deep Learning and Space Weather. So now is the time for us to present to you the second project we have been mentoring. The project is SatNOGS-RF collisions: A python library to calculate RF collisions during Satellite observation. Our mentee, Ravi Charan had been working on this project over the summer months and here is what the project is about.

SatNOGS-RF Collisions Library

The project’s main goal was to create a tool to be able to calculate and predict Radio Frequency collisions during a Satellite and a ground station communication. In the future, the tool is meant to be integrated into SatNOGS. (The worldwide, open-source network of satellite ground stations).

The Case

As the number of deployed satellites keeps increasing it is often that satellites transmit within the same or near frequency range. The overlapping in frequencies may easily interfere with the results of the observations and it may affect their accuracy. This interference in the observed results is what we refer to as Radio Frequency collision.

The Solution

The SatNOGS-RF collisions library is designed to deal with exactly that problem. It attempts to calculate efficiently and predict the Radio Frequency Collisions for a given location(s) of a ground station(s) or for a given satellite(s) and orbit(s) over a time range.

Having a more detailed look into the project

The SatNOGS-RF Collisions library is built on python and it is divided into two submodules: the GSS and the Onlysat.

The GSS submodule

The Ground Station-Satellite submodule aims at detecting the possible collisions between multiple satellites at a single or multiple ground stations over a time period. This is achieved by taking into consideration certain parameters. These include the ground station ID(s) (or) the coordinates, the elevation of a ground station, the satellite details and the time range. With the time-range into mind, the user can check if any of the satellites mentioned pass or fall under the Field of View of the Ground Station. As soon as the list of all the satellites is composed, then all the transmitters of these satellites are checked to detect if they fall within a close frequency range.

In order to deal with the Doppler shift effect successfully and having in mind that satellites revolve around the Earth at a faster velocity than the Earth’s rotation, the downlink frequency of a Satellite wouldn’t be the same as the observed frequency at the ground station.

As Ravi analyses in detail in his article:

An external library PyEphem is used to compute the relative velocity of the satellite at the given point of time. We also make use of the PyEphem library to extract the dynamic meta-data of the Satellites that changes with time as it provides an implementation for SGP4 models which is used to get essential data of the Satellite given the TLE of the Satellite.

With the GSS submodule, the users can either choose to detect if there will be a Radio Frequency collision or to detect and compute the collision details.

The detect_collision methods return boolean values indicating if the collision is possible among the satellites in the given time range whereas, the compute_collision methods return collisions in a JSON format which include metadata of the collisions including Groundstation details, time period of the possible collision, and the transmitter frequencies of the satellites at which the collisions take place.

The Onlysat submodule

This is an extension module excluding the ground station from being a parameter. Instead, what it does is to locate the region on the surface of the Earth where a potential Radio Frequency collision might take place. The parameters that need to be specified include the satellite details as well as the specific time range for which the possible collision must be detected and the results are returned in a GeoJSON format.

This submodule first computes the footprints of each satellite and then it computes the intersection of the footprints. Once the latter is checked, the Satellite transmitters are checked too, particularly those that transmit within a near frequency range over the specific region. And that is what is marked as a Radio Frequency collision. You can find out more on Computing the footprint of Satellites in Ravi’s full article.

As was the case with the GSS, the Onlysat submodule also allows the user to opt between detect_collision and compute_collision where the latter also returns the region over which an RF collision might take place. The calculated area is returned in the GeoJSON format as part of the metadata.

SatNOGS- RF Collisions: Next Steps

Both submodules require further work and testing in order to be integrated fully into SatNOGS. When this is completed the users of SatNOGS will have at their disposal a tool with which they will be able to calculate Radio Frequency collisions efficiently.

Conclusion

By collaborating closely with his mentor, Ravi Charan devoted his time, effort and knowledge for the SatNOGS-RF collisions library for GSoC 2020. This collaboration provided a valuable hands-on experience for him and from our part, we would like to wish him the best of luck for his future!

If you are a developer yourself, interested in space technologies and wishing to gain practical and hands-on experience in developing space technologies, do not hesitate to join our community forums and our SatNOGS/element Channel. All you have to do is state your interest and you might be able to work and contribute in inspiring projects allowing you to obtain actual experience, hone your development skills and get an insight look at space technology development processes. Our Communities at Libre Space Foundation and SatNOGS are always accessible and welcome projects, ideas and collaborations that promote, enhance and support open-source technologies and methodologies. So feel free to join us any time!