“Once we decided to do this, we wanted to add some extra value and carry out supporting tests for various space activities,” says small satellite specialist Cesar Bernal, working at ESA’s ESTEC technology centre in the Netherlands. “We love space and our day jobs, so are currently in contact with various ESA projects about work we might do to help them.”

Software engineer Javier Fernandez, also based at ESTEC, adds: “For instance, we are discussing carrying satnav receivers to make various measurements of the various satellite navigation constellations – such as Galileo and GPS. A lot of ESA’s Galileo ground receiver testing up until now has been carried out within quite narrow geographic margins, like the few tens of kilometres between here at ESTEC along to nearby Rotterdam. We’ll be moving across wildly varied landscapes, from built-up urban centres to more isolated mountainous or desert regions, and down to lower latitudes as well.”