Mission Operations

CTS-SAT-1 mission operations are carried out by members of the CalgaryToSpace team, as well as Dr. Burchill's research group.

Mission operations encompass the planning and execution of telecommand scheduling, operating the satellite during overpasses, system commissioning (especially of the ADCS), and decisions related to scientific data collection.

Major Milestones

Timestamps of milestones are in local time in Calgary (America/Edmonton timezone), which alternates between UTC+6 and UTC+7. Timestamps are approx. +/- 15 minutes.

• 2026-05-03 07:00 FrontierSat launched on the CAS500-2 SpaceX Falcon 9 mission.
• 2026-05-03 XX:XX First beacon observed via the SatNOGS network. FrontierSat confirmed operational on-orbit.
• 2026-05-10 11:59 First successful telecommand uplinks.
• 2026-05-10 12:32 More successful telecommand uplinks. Successfully set the message in the beacon packets to "Happy Mother's Day from CTS FrontierSat". Successfully synced the satellite's time via radio telecommand.
• 2026-05-11 12:13 Used a telecommand to reboot the EPS in attempt to fix the battery/solar panel reporting glitch.