PRETTY Spacecraft

Demonstrate GNSS reflectometry at low grazing angles for altimetry for sea ice detection using a new software-defined GNSS receiver.

Demonstrate the technique of GNSS Reflectometry at low grazing angles for altimetry (primarily for sea ice detection) using a new software-defined GNSS receiver.

Additionally, a miniaturised radiation dosimeter will also be tested in flight. System for so-called passive reflectometry, among other things, which allows for measurements of height to be carried out in the decimetre and centimetre range,

PRETTY hosts two payloads for environmental monitoring: a GNSS-Reflectometer to determine various geophysical properties (sea-surface height, sea-surface roughness, wind speed, etc.) and a dosimeter to assess the space radiation environment and its effects on electronics. The GNSS-Reflectometer operates on the L5 frequency and implements both the interferometric approach (iGNSS-R) and the clean-replica approach (cGNSS-R). The dosimeter payload is SATDOS-1, a stand-alone dosimeter payload for nanosatellites which provides total ionizing dose (TID) and single event effect (SEE) assessment in orbit.

The European Space Agency - ESA PRETTY satellite is a joint project of Beyond Gravity (prime), Technische Universität Graz and Seibersdorf Labor GmbH

Announced in April 2024, that the in-orbit commissioning phase has been successfully completed. Both instruments are working fine. The two instruments are the GNSS reflectometer built by Beyond Gravity and the dosimeter from Seibersdorf Laboratories.

A prolonged commissioning phase followed, complicated by issues with the satellite’s pointing software and radio interference from other sources.

A shoebox-sized satellite looking far to the horizon picked up a strong signal reflection from hundreds of kilometres below it, beside a lonely polar island in the Canadian Arctic.

• ANSER A Leader
• ANSER B Follower
• ANSER C Follower
• CSC 1
• CSC 2
• ESTCube-2
• MACSAT
• NESS (N3SS)
• PRETTY
• Proba-V Companion CubeSat