Austrian satellite mission PRETTY continues under the leadership of Graz University of Technology

(Press-News.org) For over two years, the Austrian mini-satellite PRETTY has orbited the Earth at an altitude of just over 500 kilometres in a sun-synchronous polar orbit. Following the commissioning phase at the end of 2023, it provided continuous data on changes in polar ice and sea levels, as well as the effects of space weather on a satellite’s lifespan. Although the mission was originally planned to last one year, it is now certain that the mission of the satellite (jointly developed by TU Graz, Beyond Gravity Austria, and Seibersdorf Laboratories) will continue in a new form under the name OPS-SAT PRETTY. This has been confirmed by the Austrian Space Agency (ALR) of the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) and the European Space Agency (ESA). “The PRETTY mission has been highly successful so far, which is why we at the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG), and ESA have agreed to extend the mission until December 2026, providing the necessary budget funds totalling 365,000 euros,” says FFG Managing Director Karin Tausz. As part of the extension, project management will transfer from Beyond Gravity, Austria's largest aerospace supplier, to Graz University of Technology (TU Graz), which operates the PRETTY ground station at Campus Inffeldgasse.

The new task is to act as a flying laboratory In future, the satellite renamed to OPS-SAT PRETTY will function as an experimental platform as part of the OPS-SAT Space Lab (https://opssat.esa.int/). This was already the case for OPS-SAT, also built at TU Graz. After a successful four-and-a-half-year mission, OPS-SAT burnt up on entering the Earth's atmosphere in May 2024. It successfully demonstrated the advantages of such experimental platforms for ESA. These platforms enable organisations, companies, and private individuals to conduct software and firmware experiments during active operations, which would not be possible with other missions. OPS-SAT PRETTY is also equipped with various subsystems, offering Austrian and international parties interested in space research a flexible, freely configurable platform for their ideas and experiments. 

“Although the original PRETTY mission was designed to last just one year, we are delighted that our satellite can now continue to provide valuable services,” says Project Manager Manuela Wenger from the Institute of Communication Networks and Satellite Communications at TU Graz. “Of course, we are also quite proud of the fact that PRETTY has proven to be very reliable after OPS-SAT and TUGSAT-1, the first Austrian satellite in space, which we also built at TU Graz.” Manuela Wenger is joined in the project team at TU Graz by Andreas Hörmer and Maximilian Henkel.

Scientific data from PRETTY is sent from Graz to the rest of the world PRETTY has mastered its original scientific mission with flying colours. “We tested a brand new technology in space for the first time and proved that important climate data can be obtained with a mini-satellite the size of a shoebox, which would otherwise require a much larger and more expensive satellite,” says Andreas Dielacher, the responsible systems engineer at Beyond Gravity. “We have developed important expertise in the payload area, the centrepiece of a satellite.” This new technology is a passive reflectometer developed by Beyond Gravity, which measures signals reflected by ice, water, and land masses from European and American navigation satellites. Climate scientists can use this information to draw conclusions about environmental data. Andreas Dielacher continues: “The data from our reflectometer was sent directly to us from the ground station at TU Graz and then passed on to the scientists.” TU Graz developed the necessary hardware platform on the satellite. 

Also on board of PRETTY is the SATDOS dosimeter, which was developed by Seibersdorf Laboratories and measures exposure to space radiation and its effects on the satellite's electronic components. “Thanks to SATDOS, we were able to collect detailed radiation data directly from PRETTY's orbit for the first time,” explains Christoph Tscherne, radiation resistance expert and project manager at Seibersdorf Laboratories. “Our results show that radiation exposure in space can have a significant impact on satellite electronics. Commercially available standard components, which are increasingly being used in spaceflight, are particularly vulnerable.”

Information on OPS-SAT PRETTY on the ESA website:
https://opssat.esa.int/pretty/

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