OPS-SAT-1 Publications in 2025

Despite the OPS-SAT-1 mission coming to an end in May 2024, we still had some publications this year. Two were peer-reviewed for AeroConf 2025 in Big Sky, Montana, and the third was presented at SpaceOps 2025 in Montreal, Canada. These publications form a nice series from how the mission operationally unfolded to how we handled its final orbits and reentry.

Innovating ground software systems – a retrospective of OPS-SAT-1 mission

D. Marszk, D. Fischer, N. R. Carvalho, T. Oerther, M. Henkel, G. Labrèche, “Innovating ground software systems – a retrospective of OPS-SAT-1 mission,” The 18th International Conference on Space Operations (SpaceOps 2025), Montreal, Canada, 2025, (7 — Ground Systems Engineering (GSE) — Paper ID 281)

• Describes OPS-SAT-1 as a software-defined, multi-tenant “space lab” exposed safely to external experimenters.
• Explains the layered experimenter interfaces (direct packets, CCSDS MO services, higher-level tools) and the virtualized, containerized ground stack.
• Presents ground-segment lessons learned that now feed into successor missions like OPS-SAT VOLT and ORIOLE.

Overview of the OPS-SAT-1 live experimenter interfaces.

Operational Challenges and Achievements of the OPS-SAT-1 Mission

D. Evans, V. Zelenevskiy, G. Labrèche, T. Oerther, N. R. Carvalho, G. Honorè, F. Dall’Omo, D. Marszk, “Operational Challenges and Achievements of the OPS-SAT-1 Mission,” 2025 IEEE Aerospace Conference, Big Sky, MT, USA, 2025, doi: 10.1109/AERO63441.2025.11068410.

• Summarizes the mission’s achievements across 285 experiments serving 134 teams from 19 different countries.
• Walks through key problem areas (ADCS, I²C, configuration, automation, testing) using real anomalies and recoveries.
• Presents five high-level operational lessons for future “open” experimental smallsat missions.

OBSW releases per month and cumulative releases. Release months taken from the GitLab release tags.

OPS-SAT-1’s Final Orbits and Reentry Analysis Amid Mission Extension Attempts

F. Dall’Omo, G. Labrèche, T. Oerther, N. R. Carvalho, G. Honorè, D. Marszk, V. Zelenevskiy, D. Evans, “OPS-SAT-1’s Final Orbits and Reentry Analysis Amid Mission Extension Attempts,” 2025 IEEE Aerospace Conference, Big Sky, MT, USA, 2025, doi: 10.1109/AERO63441.2025.11068646.

• Analyzes how the Horizontal Pointing (HoPo) drag-reduction mode and ADCS anomalies shaped the final reentry profile.
• Shows how UHF plus a SatNOGS amateur radio campaign kept telemetry flowing up to reentry.
• Captures the last weeks of operations and offers end-of-life best practices for future smallsat missions.

Orbital parameters of OPS-SAT-1 from January 1, 2024 to May 22, 2024, showing the altitude (blue), altitude change per day (orange), and BSTAR (green).