,

TRISAT: Slovenia’s Pioneering Nanosatellite Reaches its Mission End

At the beginning of past week, we proudly said goodbye to the TRISAT nanosatellite, which earned Slovenia the title of a "space nation" and has forever marked Slovenian history as the first Slovenian nanosatellite fully designed, developed and assembled in the Republic of Slovenia.

Let us recall: The University of Maribor (UM), together with SkyLabs, successfully launched Slovenia's first satellite in 2020, after more than a decade of research and development. It was launched into space aboard the European VEGA rocket on 3rd of September 2020. This successful launch came after the first planned launch was cancelled in July 2019 due to the unfortunate VV15 Vega rocket flight and the second launch was postponed in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Later, the unfavourable direction of high-altitude winds over mainland French Guiana, from where the VEGA rocket was launched in 2020, repeatedly delayed the launch, as there was a risk that, in the event of a flight failure, parts of the rocket and its payload might fall on the mainland. The successful launch finally took place in early September 2020.

Group photo of the TRISAT team taken in 2020.

The originally planned mission anticipated TRISAT's continued presence in space until 2025, but the forces of nature changed that forecast. The satellite was in a Low Earth orbit, an environment where satellites are influenced by many factors, the primary one being the extremely thin atmosphere - a rarefied mixture of gases that slows down the satellite. The satellite was launched during a period of minimal solar activity, which occurs every 11 years when the number of sunspots decreases. As such, over the past year we witnessed a rapid increase in the number of sunspots and solar flares. The result of increased number of such events depositing energy into the upper atmosphere causes it to rise, thus increasing the atmospheric drag acting on the satellite.

Simulation results clearly indicating the satellite’s decreasing orbit.

Consequently, the expected lifetime of the satellite began to diminish, and the TRISAT satellite de-orbited a year earlier than initially planned. According to calculations and models by members of the Laboratory for Electronic and Information Systems at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Informatics at the University of Maribor, the satellite burned up somewhere over Africa on the evening of Sunday, 29th of September 2024.

“With this event, we bid farewell to a small Slovenian object from space, which absorbed more than fifteen years of research and development by an extremely dedicated team and planted the ‘technological seed’ for a brighter future in both research and development, as well as in business and education, placing Slovenia on the radar of current space players,” said dr. Iztok Kramberger, TRISAT project leader.

TRISAT’s final orbit.

Despite the premature end of its lifetime, TRISAT had a significant impact on the further development of Slovenian space technologies and represents a key milestone for Slovenian science, technology, and industry, as this was the first time we dared venture into space. The Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at UM (UM FERI) and SkyLabs developed breakthrough technologies that pushed the boundaries of miniaturization on a global scale and laid the foundation for new opportunities. With the technological demonstration aboard TRISAT, Slovenian space technologies achieved the highest level of technological readiness and enabled successful global expansion.

“The success of the TRISAT mission has inspired us to take on bolder projects, including TRISAT-R, which is operating in a highly demanding and risky radiation environment at 6,000 km altitude for over two years, exceeding expectations and impressing the international community. The next phase within the TRISAT project will be the TRISAT-S mission, which is expected to launch into an extremely Low Earth orbit early next year,” added the project leader, dr. Iztok Kramberger.

On this occasion, the TRISAT team and SkyLabs would like to thank the Space Office at the Ministry of Economy, Tourism, and Sport for all their support and successful cooperation with the European Space Agency (ESA).

TRISAT satellite