SMILE Antennas
ESOC-1
S-Band up- & downlink and X-Band downlink
ESOC-2
Amateur radio UHF frequency band
ESOC-2
Dual cross-Yagi antenna for the 70 cm UHF frequency band, capable of tracking satellites in LEO
ESOC-3
Commercial and amateur S-Band
ESOC-3
A transportable antenna with no permanent support structure, connectivity or power supply.
Reindeer
S-Band and commercial & amateur radio UHF
Reindeer
UHF and S-band antenna to support polar orbiting satellites. Located at ESA’s Kiruna station.
About SMILE
SMILE is a new, open-to-use, flexible mission control and validation environment based at ESA’s operations centre in Darmstadt, Germany.
The facility can support businesses and organisations developing technologies for future missions, including innovative operations concepts, in the tough and traditionally risk-averse field of satellite monitoring and control.
Made up of a lab and four antennas (ESOC-1, ESOC-2, ESOC-3 and Reindeer), any ESA member state business, university or organisation can request to use SMILE, to explore methods of operating their small satellites and any other related activity.
Specifications
SMILE Lab
| Resource | Description |
|---|---|
| Working positions | No of position: 8 Room No D308 Access controlled |
| VMs on SMILELAN | Project specific VMs on SMILELAN |
| SLE | Remote connection to SLE Provider (Cortex) |
| Data Flow Tests | Data Flow Tests for SLE or sFTP |
| Antenna ops | Both antenna can be operated from the SMILE Lab or from remote. |
| LAB equipment | Lab equipment like 3D-Printer, Raspberry Pi, Universal Software Radio, Encoder can be accessed and used |
| External equipment | External equipment required for the activity could be put in a data centre and remotely accessed from the SMILE Lab fort the duration of the support |
| Remote access | Remote access to VMs/equipment |
| RFCT | RFCT |
The SMILE LAB
The SMILE LAB provides a flexible control room area, including related tools such as voice loops, timing systems and more. The area can be used to conduct space to ground communication tests with software-defined radio, Cortex as well as access to different data analysis tools. All interfaces (hardware and software) can be explored and used for projects and experiments with SMILE.