Binary Space has been developing state-of-the-art Satellite Telemetry Monitoring & Commanding Systems (TM/TC) for over 20 years now. Combining the latest available industrial developments and up-to-date hardware and software technologies has resulted in our current product SatView™. It is suited for satellite builders by providing effective support during Assembly, Integration and Testing (AIT) but also for operations companies controlling a satellite during all sub-sequent lifecycles (IOT, NOP). SatView™ is built upon standard hardware and software in order to reduce cost, complexity and is sold as a turn-key system with standard ground-station interfaces.
It is our commitment to develop reliable and secure systems. All software is developed in-house in order to reduce dependency from any other suppliers than Microsoft®. This guarantees fast and seamless migration to the latest operating system versions as well as continued software maintenance.
Our response time with respect to technical issues is usually less than one day. We are known as a very reliable and competent partner.

SatView™ is the successor to the Backup Satellite Support System (BSSS), which was used to support the operations of several telecommunication satellites, such as, OTS, MARECS-A, MARECS-B, ECS-1, ECS-2, ECS-4, ECS-5, OLYMPUS, ITALSAT-2 and those of British Sky Broadcasting. It successfully supported the In-Orbit Test (IOT) campaign of ARTEMIS in the ESA ground station located at Redu (Belgium) and is still extensively used to secure an overall status of the satellite.

SatView™ consists of two applications: The Desktop providing support for all real-time operations (left image) and the Editor (right image) as offline database editing tool:

EADS Astrium (Toulouse) was using SatView™ in order to prove the reliability of a high-bandwidth laser connection for data transmission between an airplane and the ARTEMIS satellite (LOLA project).
The optical ground station (OGS in Tenerife) is currently using SatView™ to monitor parameters related to the optical sub-system. Laser links are also used for data transmission between ARTEMIS and SPOT4 (imaging) and as a data relay for the ENVISAT satellite and hence are monitored by SatView™.

ARTEMIS was also providing communications between the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) and its Control Centre in Toulouse (France) in 2008. The ATV is one of the indispensable International Space Station (ISS) supply spaceships. ESA's second unmanned logistics spacecraft has been launched successfully in February 2011.

Virtual SpaceTV 3D is an experimental project aiming at the production of purely virtual broadcasts (including text-to-speech) in a highly automated way.

We initated this project to enhance our 3D skills which we consider as one of the mandatory prerequisite for future products in the area of satellite monitoring & control.
The shows cover special selected events in space and science.

In 1987, Mr. A. Wenz,Adrian Wenz, Wenz Adrian, Wenz A., the founder and owner of Binary Space, was working as a trainee in the Operations Department (OD) of the European Space Agency (ESA) in Darmstadt (ESOC). During that time he developed, alongside space operations experts, a simple PC-based satellite telemetry monitoring system. Initially it was used to demonstrate the capabilities of the PCs then available and soon became a backup tool for ESA’s prime satellite control system known as the Multiple Satellite Support System (MSSS) and consequently was named Backup Satellite Support System (BSSS). The first satellites supported by BSSS were MARECS-A, MARECS-B, followed shortly thereafter by OTS. In 1988, Eutelsat, a European telecommunication satellite operations company located in Paris, purchased BSSS in order to be able to monitor the telemetry data from its ECS-1, ECS-2, ECS-4, ECS-5 satellites. The ESA ground station at Redu (Belgium) also used BSSS for this purpose. Another customer, British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB), purchased additional systems to support its two telecommunications satellites starting from 1991.

The loss of the OLYMPUS satellite two years later proved to be an excellent opportunity for BSSS to demonstrate its capabilities: As the only telemetry monitoring system capable of both monitoring and processing incomplete telemetry frames, BSSS was the key system for the success of the subsequent recovery campaign. At that time, companies such as British Aerospace (BAe) and Telespazio (TPZ) purchased additional systems in order to support the recovery mission. The European Space and Technology Centre (ESTEC) also became involved through the purchase of several BSSS during that time.

The experiences gained with earlier satellites led to the decision to use BSSS to support the In-Orbit Testing (IOT) of ITALSAT, launched in 1996. It also initiated the partial funding of the development of the next generation of satellite support system known as SatView™, which was initially used in 2001 to aid and accelerate the IOT of ARTEMIS as well as to support all ongoing operations.

As the number of customers for ARTEMIS was growing the following years, new companies like EADS Astrium or the ESA Optical Ground Station (OGS) in Tenerife were purchasing SatView™, mainly for monitoring the optical payload for the Liaison Optique Laser Aéroportée (LOLA) project and the Intersatellite Link Experiment (OPALE).

ARTEMIS - Europe's advanced telecommunications satellite
Release 1.1 (August 2009)

Most of the information, pictures and animations on this page are derived from ESA's website and hence are the intellectual property of ESA.

About ARTEMIS

ARTEMIS is no ordinary telecommunications satellite. It incorporates new, advanced technologies that not only expand and improve all areas of navigation, mobile communication and satellite to satellite communications but will open up new markets and innovative services to people all over the world. Multimedia projects, distance learning schemes for children in isolated areas, rescue communications systems and emergency 'telemedicine' projects are already using satellites to improve the daily lives of people on a global basis and ARTEMIS is set to improve these and expand these kinds of services.
With a mass of 3,100 kg at launch, solar arrays spanning 25 meters and the capacity to deliver 2.5 kW of electrical power, ARTEMIS incorporates several significant technological advances that will not only impact services and facilities on Earth, but will also influence and enhance future satellite missions:

The satellite's data relay systems, which include a sophisticated SILEX (Semi-conductor laser Inter-satellite Link EXperiment) laser and SKDR payloads, allows Earth observation data from other satellites such as France's SPOT4 and ESA's Envisat, to be transmitted much faster via ARTEMIS directly to the relevant Earth-based ground stations.

This has far reaching implications for Earth monitoring, particularly in times of crisis such as natural disasters like flooding or earthquakes when time is of the essence to avoid greater catastrophe or risk to human life.
On the left side the first image (Lanzarote) transmitted by means of an optic laser between the Pastel instrument on SPOT4 and the SILEX system on the geostationary satellite ARTEMIS is shown. The satellite relays the images in real time to the image treatment centre 'Spot Image' in Toulouse.

The L-Band Land Mobile (LLM) payload provides mobile communication services throughout western Europe and neighboring regions, including the Mediterranean, the Middle East and parts of Russia.

Now, Europe is bringing advanced satellite navigation to the civilian population with Galileo, a European global satellite navigation system set to transform our land and sea transport and revolutionize air traffic control world-wide. The first stepping stone in this ambitious program is European Geostationary Navigation Overlay System (EGNOS);

a joint project between ESA, Eurocontrol and the European Commission.
The first orbital element built by ESA is the navigation payload onboard ARTEMIS. Positioned over Africa and working alongside Inmarsat-3, AOR-E and IOR telecommunications satellites, an ARTEMIS transponder will broadcast navigation signals from the EGNOS Master Control Centre (MCC).

Inclination control thrusters that use ion propulsion technology are a first for a European satellite. They maintain the satellite in a stable orbital position without the need for large amounts of chemical propellant. In contrast to conventional chemical propulsion, this new technology ionizes the noble gas, Xenon, and uses it as a propellant. A high voltage system subsequently accelerates these ions, which leave the ion engines as a neutralized beam, thus creating the necessary mass expulsion to provide thrust to the spacecraft.