10:55 UTC 24 deg elevation pass, active but weak signals
Beesat has now been on orbit for more than eight months. In order to reduce the required effort for ground control and to increase overall resilience care has been taken to provide Beesat with the capability to withstand any period without ground station contact.
After successfully completing a large number of planned reaction wheel tests and numerous experiments with Beesat’s hard- and software during normal daily satellite operations time has come to test on-board autonomy. The satellite spent on orbit four weeks without any ground control operations. It was important for us to execute and demonstrate the system stability and overall survival capability of Beesat.
Now that daily ground station contact has been re-established and no damage whatsoever was observed it has been verified that Beesat is well capable of handling longer period without ground operations. The on-board autonomy was demonstrated successfully.