ANGELS

Launch data: Designation  44876 / 19092D Launch date  18 Dec 2019 - 08:54 UTC Launch site  Ko, ELS Launch vehicle  Soyuz-ST-A Fregat-M Mission  Communications Earth orbit: Perigee / Apogee  508 x 527 km Eccentricity   Inclination  97.4° Period  95.0 min

Spacecraft data:

Description:

• ANGELS (Argos Neo on a Generic Economical and Light Satellite) is the first nanosatellite designed and developed by French industry with support from CNES. It is set to carry Argos-Neo, an instrument 10 times smaller and consuming three times less power than the generation of Argos instruments currently in orbit.
• CNES and French firm Hemeria are co-funding and developing ANGELS with a resolutely NewSpace approach to governance, design, development and testing, systematically employing miniaturized commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components. This approach comes with a certain degree of risk, but enables big reductions in costs and lead times.
• The ANGELS project got underway in March 2017 and will culminate in the launch of the miniature satellite in the autumn of 2019 from the Guiana Space Centre (CSG). Hemeria will then be ready to offer a whole range of nanosatellites in the 10-to-50-kg category for scientific and operational missions such as data collection and location from transmitters, maritime surveillance, radiofrequency spectrum surveillance and Earth observation. The ANGELS demonstrator nanosatellite will round out the fleet of Argos instruments already in orbit and will be operated by CNES. Data from the satellite will be processed by CNES subsidiary Collecte Localisation Satellites (CLS).

Mission details:

• On Dec 18, 2019 Arianespace launched a Soyuz ST-A/Fregat from the Centre Spatial Guyanais to place several satellites in sun-synchronous orbit.
• Fregat burn 5 and 6 went to 468 x 703 km and then to 509 x 527 km, following which three cubesats were deployed at 1305 UTC:
  ANGELS is a 12U cubesat built by Toulouse company Hemeria for the French space agency CNES. It carries a new version of the long-running ARGOS system which relays data from meteorological buoys.
• EyeSat and OPS-SAT were also deployed.

External links:

• Satellite tracking (n2ya.com): Real time satellite tracking