More than one and a half year has passed since the deployment of Delphini-1. The satellite is still going strong and we are regularly posting news on our Facebook page: Delphini-1
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Delphini-1 has just completed 4000 orbits around the earth this morning! What a journey! To celebrate this we show a picture of our two moons ... or wait ... is it just a ghost image well in time for Halloween? #delphini1 Stellar Astrophysics Centre Science and Technology - Aarhus Universitet
Happy Birthday Delphini-1!!!! Exactly 2 years ago, after assembling the satellite in the cleanroom, Delphini-1 was turned on for the very first time! Incredible how time flies and how much we have achieved in these 2 years! We finished the satellite assembly; we tested and tested and tested it; we built a ground station; we brought the satellite to Houston to be implemented into the launch pod (as hand luggage on a plane!); it was flown to the International Space Station while we watched the rocket launch; and then it was finally deployed into space. Delphini-1 is operating well and is happily taking pictures, especially of Australia and surroundings;-).In total, roughly 50 students were involved in one way or the other. But here, I would like to extend my special thanks to those who spent many hours testing the satellite and the incredible group of students who are operating Delphini-1 day and night! You all made this mission an unimaginable success!!!! Vichi Antoci. Aarhus University, Science and Technology - Aarhus Universitet, Stellar Astrophysics Centre, GomSpace Group, NanoRacks.
We're celebrating Delphini-1's 3000th orbit around the Earth! To celebrate, we share this beautiful image of the horizon as seen by Delphini, one of our pretties pictures with the atmosphere yet. The image was taken the 12th of July, at 05:07 (UTC), somewhere over the ocean between Australia and Antarctica. We're looking forward to many more orbits in the future!
Today, 50 years ago mankind first set foot on the Moon. A remarkable feat of courage and engineering. We went to the moon 5 more times and hopefully will soon go again. And even though Delphini-1 will never go to the moon, we can still dream of vast open lands on the surface and the magnificent journey it must have been. Here is an image of the full moon taken with Delphini-1 - we know it is not as great as the moon landing, but a nice achievement for tiny Delphini-1!
Delphinis are already in space... will the whales be next?
It's been a while since our last post... which clearly shows that we could do a loooot better keeping in touch,... but all these classes, exams and master/PhD projects don't write themselves, after all! Anyway, Delphini-1 is doing very well and we are taking pictures, doing projects and automatising operations. Here one of the latest (mind-blowing) images of Australia. Incredibly we managed to capture both Uluru (Ayers Rock) and Kata Tjuta (click on the image for full resolution). These are unique places and have a very interesting geological history and are sacred to the Anangu people. Stellar Astrophysics Centre, Aarhus Universitet, Science and Technology - Aarhus Universitet
https://parksaustralia.gov.au/uluru/
- and not to be boasting, but here is another image of the same area, taken from the ISS with a much better camera - which one do you prefer? We know what we think!
At the "Days of Research" event at Stakladen, Aarhus University we told about Delphini-1 and we even talked to it online, with lots of spectators watching.
Delphini-1 is doing well and the team is working hard on several projects: e.g., better understanding the behaviour of #Delphini1 and automatising some of the operations. The later helps to get more sleep when the passages are during the night. Here a recent nice picture of Australia (and some clouds looking like a bird)! Can you spot the area in Google Maps? We think we can! https://goo.gl/maps/rBpwtz9PYmy
#Delphini1 not only took awesome pictures of the clouds (see previous post), but also took an incredible shot of the Earth Earth's atmosphere! Enjoy!! Also this image was taken on March 8 around 4:30 a.m. (UTC). See more information on Delphini's location in the previous post.
Taking good pictures is not an easy job! ...every professional and amateur photographer would testify to that! Even more so when your camera is in space and you do not quite know what exposure times to use and the camera is moving - always pointing towards different light conditions. Nevertheless, after sleepless nights (literally, as #Delphini1 passes over Aarhus during the night at the moment) we finally took the most beautiful pictures ever (... well at least for us). This picture was taken over the South Pacific Ocean on March 8 at 04:31 a.m. UTC with an exposure time of 0.015 sec.
I guess when we are having fun and are very busy, time flies... which also means it is easy to forget to write updates...ooops! Here some news and you can find an amazing video from Delphini-1's deployment (video credit: NASA & NanoRacks) on our Delphini-1 facebook page under this date. The filming was done by the Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques.
UPDATES:
As you remember, we had some troubles at the beginning, but after a while we figured out that our ground station was not properly operational! In the meantime we have replaced the non-functional components and performed calibrations. Now we can communicate with Delphini-1 and can download house-keeping data that show us the satellite's health.
#Delphini1 is doing well, i.e. performing nominally (always good to say that!), and we are also downloading pictures in thumbnail format. We are still playing around with the camera to find the optimal parameters and are establishing the daily routine for satellite operations.
Next to expect: a nice Delphini-1 picture.
Stellar Astrophysics Centre, Aarhus Universitet, Science and Technology - Aarhus Universitet, GomSpace Group, NanoRacks
We finally managed to get our ground station up and running after replacing some components! Now we can finally communicate with Delphini-1 properly! Apart from testing all the sub-components we also know that our camera is well. Next step: download pictures!
Thank you GomSpace Group for helping us on such a short notice! We would also like to express our special thanks to Aalborg University and also to all the radio amateurs who were monitoring Delphini-1! It was really important for us to know that our satellite was alive and well.
Stellar Astrophysics Centre, Science and Technology - Aarhus Universitet, Aarhus Universitet
This is how the data stream from Delphini-1 looks like on the monitor in the control room.
A little teaser: Can you find Delphini-1 on this deployment image? Credit: NASA & NanoRacks
Take a look at our Delphini-1 facebook page and our Twitteraccount going all the way back to when we assembled and tested the satellite, and with some awesome pictures and videos!
