Global Educational Network for Satellite Operations
The Global Educational Network for Satellite Operations is forming by a worldwide network of ground stations and spacecraft which can interact via a software standard. The GENSO aims to increase the return from educational space missions and changed the way that these missions are managed, dramatically increasing the level of access to orbital educational spacecraft.
History
In November 2007, a kickoff meeting was held at the CubeSat workshop. This short presentation to the rest of the GENSO groups described work at Cal Poly for the project. This workshop kicked off the Alpha Test phase of the project. The entire project was successfully demoed in front of a live audience, and it worked beautifully. The Mission Control Client booked downlink sessions with the Ground Station Server, and the Ground Station Server controlled the radio and rotors at the AAU ground station. The running Authentication Server authenticated people and registered satellites on the network.In February 2009, the ROBUSTA project joined the GENSO initiative. ROBUSTA is the first French university CubeSat. The objective of the payload experiment is to measure the radiation induced degradation of electronic devices. Flight data will be compared to the results of a novel prediction method taking into account the Enhanced Low Dose Rate Sensitivity. The second interesting point of this project is that it's a real educational project. Although the system hasn't yet grown to the "hundreds" of ground stations identified in Alexandru Munteanu's Thesis from 2009, testing and integration continue to proceed.
The GENSO project initiated under the guidance of the International Space Education Board has many existing capabilities and is accumulating the interest of large groups inside and outside of the United States. However, it is still lacking a fully equipped ground station that can complement its capabilities.
Since 2011, a great deal of work has been done on Release 1E of GENSO to help make it more user friendly and reliable for the Amateur Radio community. Ground stations like the one at COSMIAC are now running 24/7 downloading data for educational satellites such as the University of Michigan RAX-2 spacecraft.
How GENSO works
The GENSO system is a software networking standard which allows a user to communicate with a spacecraft by using a remote ground station which has a clear view of the spacecraft. Communications between the client computer and the ground station server are conducted across the Internet.There are three major components to the GENSO system :
- GSS – Ground Station Server
- MCC - The Mission Control Client is the control station for a satellite. Each satellite will have one MCC. A GSS will see a snapshot of the satellite but only MCC will have the entire picture
- AUS – The Authentication Server is the server that mediates communication between MCCs and GSSs on the GENSO network. When a ground station wants to join the network, the AUS permits them and then assigns them bookings to accomplish. The current AUS is located in Vigo, Spain and the backup is at Cal Poly: San Luis Obispo.
- Rotator Controller
- Terminal node control
- Radio Controller
List of members
Source:| ORGANIZATION | COMPONENT |
| Aalto University | GSS |
| California Polytechnic State University | GSS |
| Delft University of Technology | MCC |
| ESOC | GSS |
| ESTEC | GSS |
| Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Space Centre | MCC |
| Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Space Centre | GSS |
| Graz University of Technology | GSS |
| International Space University | GSS |
| Isis Space | GSS |
| MyGroundStations.com | GSS |
| Polytechnic University of Catalonia | GSS |
| Radio Amateur – G3VZV | GSS |
| Radio Amateur – G4DPZ | GSS |
| Radio Amateur – KA0SWT | GSS |
| Sergio Arboleda University | GSS |
| University of Applied Sciences, Heidelberg | GSS |
| University of Kentucky | GSS |
| University of Montpellier | GSS |
| University of New Mexico, Configurable Space Microsystems Innovations & Applications Centre | GSS |
| University of Surrey, Surrey Space Centre | GSS |
| University of Texas at Austin | MCC |
| University of Texas at Austin | MCC |
| University of Texas at Austin | GSS |
| University of Valladolid | GSS |
| University of Vigo | AUS |
| University of Vigo | MCC |
| University of Vigo | MCC |
| University of Vigo | GSS |
| University of York | GSS |
| University of La Reunion, , :fr:École supérieure d'ingénieurs Réunion Océan Indien|ESIROI IT Dept | GSS |
| Stanford Research Institute International & University of Michigan, College of Engineering | MCC |
| University of Michigan | MCC |
| Sapienza University of Rome | MCC |
| Warsaw University of Technology & Space Research Centre of Polish Academy of Sciences | MCC |
| Politecnico di Torino | MCC |
| Hungary | MCC |
| -ULPGC | GSS |