Toulouse, France – 14 March 2024 – Expleo today announces that following testing this week it has successfully received from its ENSO nanosatellite payload, indicating that it is fully operational and will soon begin its two-year mission to monitor solar activity and its impact on Earth’s atmosphere.
ENSO (Expleo Nanosat for Solar irradiance Observation) was developed in partnership with the Centre Spatial Universitaire de Montepellier (CSUM) and launched on 1 December from California aboard the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, mission 425.
The first signals from ENSO were received by the teams at Expleo and CSUM on Monday, 11 March, at approximately 10:58 CET. Two three-hour sequences of testing were conducted to confirm the ‘health’ of the payload by testing each of the sub-systems (mission controller, gyroscope, camera, and RF beacon) before the process of antenna deployment which will be the subject of the next commissioning campaign in the next few days.
Stephane de Souza, Electronics & Embedded Systems France Deputy Country Leader of Expleo, said: “Launching a satellite is a complex mission that requires a team with a deep and diverse skillset. Receiving the first signal confirming that ENSO is ‘healthy’ and ready to start its mission is a great moment for us and a proof point of the team we’ve built and its capacity to support NewSpace programmes for our partners. We’re now looking forward to receiving the first findings from its mission.”
ENSO combines Expleo expertise across systems engineering, quality and assembly, and integration and test (AIT). It is the company’s first own nanosatellite launch from a dedicated team which has developed NewSpace capabilities supporting nanosatellite launches for partners such as the State of Djibouti.
