The Global Educational Network for Satellite Operations (GENSO)[1] [2] is forming by a worldwide network of ground stations and spacecraft which can interact via a software standard. The GENSO aims to increase the return from educational space missions and changed the way that these missions are managed, dramatically increasing the level of access to orbital educational spacecraft.[3]
In November 2007, a kickoff meeting was held at the CubeSat workshop.[4] [5] [6] [7] This short presentation (at Aalborg University in Denmark) to the rest of the GENSO groups described work at Cal Poly for the project. This workshop kicked off the Alpha Test phase of the project. The entire project was successfully demoed in front of a live audience (us). The Mission Control Client booked downlink sessions with the Ground Station Server, and the Ground Station Server controlled the radio and rotors at the AAU ground station (across the building). The running Authentication Server authenticated people and registered satellites on the network.
In February 2009, the ROBUSTA[8] project joined the GENSO initiative. ROBUSTA is the first French university CubeSat. The objective of the payload experiment is to measure the radiation induced degradation of electronic devices. Flight data will be compared to the results of a novel prediction method taking into account the Enhanced Low Dose Rate Sensitivity. The second interesting point of this project is that it's a real educational project. Although the system hasn't yet grown to the "hundreds" of ground stations identified in Alexandru Munteanu's Thesis from 2009,[9] testing and integration continue to proceed.
The GENSO project initiated under the guidance of the International Space Education Board (ISEB) has many existing capabilities and is accumulating the interest of large groups inside and outside of the United States. However, it is still lacking a fully equipped ground station that can complement its capabilities.
Since 2011, a great deal of work has been done on Release 1E of GENSO to help make it more user friendly and reliable for the Amateur Radio[10] community. Ground stations like the one at COSMIAC are now running 24/7 downloading data for educational satellites such as the University of Michigan RAX-2 spacecraft.
The GENSO system is a software networking standard which allows a user to communicate with a spacecraft by using a remote ground station which has a clear view of the spacecraft. Communications between the client computer (a mission controlcomputer) and the ground station server are conducted across the Internet.[11] There are three major components to the GENSO system :
There are also three main components that the GENSO system remotely controls:
The GENSO software is written in Java. GENSO was developed and is currently maintained under the auspices of the European Space Agency (ESA).
Source:[12]
| ORGANIZATION (country) | COMPONENT (satellite) | |
|---|---|---|
| Aalto University (Finland) | GSS | |
| California Polytechnic State University (United States) | GSS | |
| Delft University of Technology (Netherlands) | MCC (Delft) | |
| ESOC (Germany) | GSS | |
| ESTEC (Netherlands) | GSS | |
| Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), Space Centre (Switzerland) | MCC (SwissCube) | |
| Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), Space Centre (Switzerland) | GSS | |
| Graz University of Technology (Austria) | GSS | |
| International Space University (France) | GSS | |
| Isis Space (Netherlands) | GSS | |
| MyGroundStations.com (UK) | GSS | |
| Polytechnic University of Catalonia (Spain) | GSS | |
| Radio Amateur – G3VZV (UK) | GSS | |
| Radio Amateur – G4DPZ (UK) | GSS | |
| Radio Amateur – KA0SWT (United States) | GSS | |
| Sergio Arboleda University (Colombia) | GSS | |
| University of Applied Sciences, Heidelberg (Germany) | GSS | |
| University of Kentucky (United States) | GSS | |
| University of Montpellier (France) | GSS | |
| University of New Mexico, Configurable Space Microsystems Innovations & Applications Centre (United States) | GSS | |
| University of Surrey, Surrey Space Centre (UK) | GSS | |
| University of Texas at Austin (United States) | MCC (FASTRAC 1) | |
| University of Texas at Austin (United States) | MCC (FASTRAC 2) | |
| University of Texas at Austin (United States) | GSS | |
| University of Valladolid (Spain) | GSS | |
| University of Vigo (Spain) | AUS | |
| University of Vigo (Spain) | MCC (Test Satellites) | |
| University of Vigo (Spain) | MCC (Xatcobeo) | |
| University of Vigo (Spain) | GSS | |
| University of York (UK) | GSS | |
| University of La Reunion, LIM, ESIROI IT Dept (Réunion/France)[13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] | GSS | |
| Stanford Research Institute International & University of Michigan, College of Engineering | MCC (RAX-2) | |
| University of Michigan (United States) | MCC (M-CUBED) | |
| MCC (UniCubeSat-GG) | ||
| MCC (PW-Sat) | ||
| Politecnico di Torino (Italy) | MCC (E-st@r) | |
| Hungary | MCC (MaSat-1) | |
| IDeTIC-ULPGC (University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria) (Spain, Canary Islands) | GSS |
