For planet earth and beyond
Getting out in the fresh air is more ‘in’ than ever this year, and with FATMAP’s adventure platform, activities in the Great Outdoors have never been easier to plan. With the support of ESA Space Solutions, FATMAP have now added some crucial ‘live data’ enhanced features, which take the application to new heights.
The ‘maker’ movement in electronics and the meteoric rise of smartphones have led to a surge in small satellites - such as nano- and picosatellites (picosats are the tiniest of smallsats). But something has to propel these pocket-size payloads into space. The AlbaPod is the first flight-proven six unit (6p) ‘PocketQube’ or picosat satellite deployer, whose successful demonstration was performed under the ARTES Competitiveness & Growth programme.
A fully reconfigurable, software-defined, standardised satellite for the commercial telecommunications market is under development, with contributions from a new Partnership Project between satellite manufacturer Thales Alenia Space and ESA.
The ESAIL microsatellite for tracking ships at sea has captured 57 000 messages in its first 24 hours of operation, using advanced on-board processing algorithms.
