The TRACE student team from TU Darmstadt University, Germany, has been selected for the October 2025 test window of ESA’s Fly Your Satellite! Test Opportunities programme. This selection follows a call for proposals that closed in June 2025, with evaluations conducted by Fly Your Satellite! experts and operators from the CubeSat Support Facility. This marks the beginning of an exciting journey for TRACE students, who will gain hands-on experience in environmental testing and prepare to test their satellite at ESA facilities.
Fly Your Satellite! Test Opportunities is an educational programme offering university student teams access to ESA’s CubeSat Support Facility (CSF) and expert guidance in conducting environmental test campaigns. For each test window, ESA invites university student teams from ESA Member States, Canada, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia to submit proposals.
As part of the most recent selection process, the student team was invited to present their test proposals at the programme’s kick-off meeting held in July 2025. During the same event, students also attended a webinar on environmental testing delivered by CSF operators.
The TRACE team gave an outstanding presentation of their test proposal and responded effectively to the questions raised by the experts. As a result, the TRACE team has been officially selected for the October 2025 test window of Fly Your Satellite! Test Opportunities programme.
About TRACE
The team designed TRACE (TU Darmstadt ReseArch CubeSat for Education), a 2U CubeSat scheduled for launch in 2026. TRACE team members are part of the student association TU Darmstadt Space Technology (TUDSaT) e.V., and the project is supported by the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) and the Institute for Flight Systems and Automatic Control of TU Darmstadt.
The primary mission of TRACE is to demonstrate a lightweight and cost-effective technology for passive, laser-based orbit and attitude determination using retroreflective foils.
Retroreflector technologies enable ground-based laser ranging stations to identify and track satellites—especially useful for CubeSats deployed in clusters, where individual identification can be challenging. By enhancing trackability, these technologies support ESA’s priorities in Space Traffic Management and Space Situational Awareness, both of which are closely linked to ongoing efforts in space debris mitigation.
ESA’s Space Debris Mitigation Compliance Verification Guidelines recommend the use of retroreflectors to support Satellite Laser Ranging. These guidelines encourage spacecraft operators to adopt such technologies as part of their identification and tracking strategies, thereby contributing to long-term sustainability and safe coordination in increasingly crowded orbital environments.
TRACE also includes a secondary mission: a space weather measurement campaign using novel sensor technology. This further enhances the CubeSat’s scientific and educational value.
What’s next?
The TRACE team will now enter the test preparation phase, working towards securing the “green light” for execution. Upon approval, they will conduct environmental testing at the CSF during the designated two-week test window. These upcoming tests will be part of the acceptance campaign for the CubeSat’s protoflight model.
Stay tuned for updates and future test opportunities! More information about the Fly Your Satellite! Test Opportunities programme can be found here.
English