Fraunhofer Institute for High-Speed Dynamics, Ernst-Mach-Institut, EMIERNST is the first satellite developed by Fraunhofer. The small satellite has been orbiting the Earth since August and provides valuable data for research.
In the summer of 2024, a particular success of Fraunhofer EMI attracted the attention of a wide audience of the Tagesschau and Tagesthemen: the launch of the ERNST research satellite. ERNST is a pioneer in several respects: the first small satellite built with Bundeswehr research grants, the first satellite developed by Fraunhofer and, what made it so prominent in the media coverage, the first European satellite with a camera payload for early missile detection on board a CubeSat measuring just 25 × 25 × 34 cm3.
After completion and passing the acceptance tests in spring 2024, ERNST was transported to its launch site at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The commercial launch on board a Falcon 9 launcher was made possible with funding from the German Armed Forces. Due to several postponements of the launch, an EMI employee traveled to ERNST again in California in July 2024 to refresh the batteries’ charge status. On August 16, 2024, the time had finally come. With 99 other satellites on board the Transporter 11 mission, ERNST was launched into its target orbit at an altitude of 510 km.
After the second flyover, we successfully established contact with ERNST via our UHF ground station at EMI in Freiburg. Since then, the operations team has been working tirelessly to accompany the noon and midnight overflights and to command prepared task scripts. Until then, commissioning in orbit had to be completed and initial challenges had to be overcome. Since then, ERNST’s full operational readiness and its ability to track a target by rotating the satellite during an overflight have been successfully tested. ERNST is now in scheduled experimental operation. In the coming years, this should demonstrate the performance of the small satellite and provide important data for early warning of missiles.
