Satellite Mission Guide

WIP - Work in Progress

This page intents to provide information for Satellite Missions (under development, or operational) on why and how to join SatNOGS.

Reasons to Join

You have recently discovered SatNOGS and you are involved in a mission. Here are the top 10 reasons why your mission should join SatNOGS:

1. SatNOGS can help streamline your mission operations (Dashboards, Monitoring, Telemetry acquisition)
2. SatNOGS is open source technology. Every piece of technology we develop is licensed as an open source project (software and hardware), which you can learn from, re-mix, re-use and contribute!
3. SatNOGS is a global community of satellite enthusiasts, radio amateurs and satellite operators! Join our community and be part of it.
4. SatNOGS is best suited for educational, research, non-profit, experimental and amateur missions. Libre Space Foundation[1] that runs SatNOGS is committed on supporting those missions.
5. SatNOGS is the largest global ground station network. 400 stations online with a spread around the world. No other network can beat that :)
6. SatNOGS is non-profit. Our sustainability is funded through development funds, custom development if needed and a viral model of adding ground stations to the network. Using the network is as simple as adding another station to it!
7. SatNOGS is full of educational opportunities. Great learning material, documentation and a vibrant community can help you get up to speed for mission COMMS and Operations.
8. SatNOGS modular technology stack allows you to integrate with your existing space and ground station hardware easily. We support many COTS hardware or can easily add support for more.
9. SatNOGS provides also a vertical approach if you choose to opt-in for tested integration through Libre Space Foundation space qualified hardware COMMS options (SatNOGS COMMS[2] and PQ9ISH COMMS[3]).
10. SatNOGS is a project abiding to the Libre Space Manifesto [4].

Add a new Mission

Do you want to integrate your mission with SatNOGS? Cool! Here is a short guide how to do this. Please also reach out to us via chat or community so that we can support you. Checklist:

1. SatNOGS DB
   • Suggest to add your satellite to satnogs-db by creating an issue in satnogs-ops providing the following information:
     • Name
     • NORAD catalog number (if already assigned)
     • Amateur Radio call sign (if Amateur service)
     • Description
     • Project Website
     • Image of the satellite
   • Once the new satellite was added to satnogs-db by one of the satnogs-ops team members, find your satellite in db.satnogs.org and add a transmitter suggestion for each transmitter of your satellite
2. GR SatNOGS
   • Choose one of the existing flowgraphs in gr-satnogs or provide a new one
3. SatNOGS Client
   • If you added a new flowgraph under the previous point, make sure to add support for it in satnogs-client
   • Wait for the next release of satnogs-client-ansible, then let the station owners know that your satellite is supported now and ask them to update their stations.
4. SatNOGS Decoders
   • Add a decoder written in Kaitai to satnogs-decoders

We kindly ask you to also provide a station to increase the network (maybe you can spare some time of your existing ground station to SatNOGS).

See also

• SatNOGS DB
• SatNOGS Network