Celeste is ESA’s mission designed to test novel satellite navigation concepts for resilient positioning and timing services.

Celeste will demonstrate how a complementary layer flying closer to Earth can enhance Europe’s current Galileo system in medium Earth orbit (MEO), boosting the overall resilience, enhancing its performance and opening opportunities for new service capabilities directly from LEO.

The mission will begin with two in-orbit demonstration satellites, IOD-1 and IOD-2, to secure and test the assigned frequency filings and transmit representative navigation signals until the end of the year.

The two satellites consist of two large CubeSats (12U and 16U respectively), both developed by two consortia composed by a wide set of European players, one led by GMV (Spain) and the other led by Thales Alenia Space (France).

Learn more about Celeste.