FSSCat was the winner of the 2017 Copernicus Masters Sentinel Small Sat Challenge award promoted by ESA. The aim of this competition was to define, implement and validate an Earth Observation mission which would be complementary to the Copernicus program, with a budget limited to €1M.

The mission was developed by a European consortium led by Elecnor DEIMOS in conjunction with Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) and three other companies: Golbriak Space OÜ, from Estonia, Tyvak International, from Italy, and Cosine, from the Netherlands.

The mission consisted of two 6U cubesats flying together with one satellite which combined a GNSS Reflectometer and a Microwave Radiometer (developed by UPC), and another consisting of a Hyperspectral camera (developed by Cosine) that operated in the visible, near-infrared and thermal spectrum.

The two satellites were able to communicate via an on-board optical inter-satellite link (developed by Golbriak) to share downlink opportunities. The two cubesats, as well as the integration and validation of the different payloads on the 6U platform, were the responsibility of Tyvak international while DEIMOS developed the ground segment for data processing and dissemination.

Mission Operations

The mission was launched on 3 September 2020 from Kourou, French Guiana. The satellites operated in a sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 540 km with an inclination of 98°. The satellites had an orbital period of 94 minutes. The mission concluded in 2021.

Using its artificial intelligence payload, imagery acquired by FSSCat was analysed to assess cloud cover to ensure that only usable imagery was transmitted back to Earth, which improved the efficiency of handling and working with the data acquired by FSSCat.