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!