The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicProtecting life and infrastructure on Earth and in orbit
Go to topicUsing space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth
Go to topicMaking space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
Go to topicThank you for liking
You have already liked this page, you can only like it once!
SIDLOC (Spacecraft Identification and Localization) is an experiment from Greek non-profit the Libre Space Foundation (LSF). Their goal with the project is to help make space safer by speeding up the process of identifying space missions, from satellites to space probes and space stations.
Attached to the upper stage of the Ariane 6, the 63 x 63 x 40 mm SIDLOC experiment’s mission is to build an ‘open standard protocol’ to easily, automatically and accurately identify and locate spacecraft. It will do this via a radio-transmitted beacon, tracked and decoded by a network of open-source ground stations, software and hardware.
SIDLOC will transmit a broad-spectrum signal deliberately spread out over a large radio bandwidth. Information carried in the signal comes in a standard ‘schema’ – a structure and format consisting of binary data that is modulated to add all the necessary information about the spacecraft to the signal. The structured data format thus allows for the spacecraft's rapid identification and localisation.
On Earth, the SatNOGS Network – a global network of open-source ground stations – will receive the signal and demodulate the data, including the spacecraft's ID, and using the Doppler effect will identify the spacecraft's location.