Breakthrough Slovak satellite. She exceeded expectations, also competed for NASA

10. June 2025 at 7:54

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BRATISLAVA. The mission of the Slovak Space Satellite Grbalpha officially ended. The nanosatelite in the shape of a cube with a long edge of only ten centimeters flew into orbit in March 2021 and lasted more than four years, which is in the category of so -called cubesatov above average.

There was also an above -average performance that the miniature satellite gave – significantly exceeded the expectations of designers and scientists. At orbit, he was hunted with Gama Gaming flashes, a special discipline that had been managed only by large space observatories for hundreds of millions of euros.

The Slovak Grbalpha did this, although the price of its development, construction and orbit did not exceed six digits. It thus confirmed the innovative technological concept that testified that world science can be done in space even for a fraction of money and engineering-scientific capacities of the largest agencies such as NASA or European ESA.

The satellite, which was operated by the Faculty of Aviation Faculty of Technical University in Košice (TUKE), burned in the atmosphere on Monday in the late evening, probably in the North Pole. The last contact with the ground made at a height of about 160 kilometers above the surface. For the SME daily, this was confirmed by members of the Grbalpha Mission team.

With a little soul

Grbalpha is also nicknamed « Gamma flashes » (Gama-ray bursts, in short GRB). They arise when very material, rapidly rotating stars at the end of their lives collapse gravity and turn into a neutron star or a black hole. They also arise when the two neutron stars are melted, when a black hole is probably created. Monitoring these phenomena is interesting for scientists, especially because of the exploration of the origin of the elements.