It was the second German CubeSat - a satellite with a cube-shaped basic unit - to be sent into space.
The launch took place on 28 April 2008 from the Indian spaceport of Sriharikota. 15 minutes after launching, COMPASS-1 reached its sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 635 kilometres, fully functional.
It's an incredible feeling to develop a real satellite yourself and then send it into space.
During the second overflight of the satellite over Germany, the ground station on top of the FH building in Hohenstaufenallee received a first sign of life in the form of Morse signals. These signals provided a large amount of data, as was the case with other overflights.
Photo Credits:
NASA Space Center (title picture)
FH Aachen | Jeanne Niermann
Translation:
Monika Brinkmann