ESAIL

ESAIL was a small satellite developed by the European Space Agency (ESA) in partnership with LuxSpace and ExactEarth. Its objective was worldwide tracking of ships using their automatic identification systems (AIS) for fisheries monitoring, fleet management, environmental protection, and security monitoring. The satellite was launched in September 2020 on the Vega flight VV16 from Guiana Space Centre. In a record-breaking technology demonstration, the satellite managed to process more than 2,000,000 messages from 70,000 different ships in a single day, representing a 15% to 20% improvement over previous satellites.

European satellite for maritime tracking

ESAIL

Mission type	Maritime tracking
Operator	European Space Agency Luxspace exactEarth
COSPAR ID	2020-061B
Start of mission
Launch date	3 September 2020
Rocket	Vega flight VV16
Launch site	Guiana Space Centre
End of mission
Decay date	3 March 2025
Orbital parameters
Reference system	Geocentric
Regime	Sun-synchronous
Altitude	515 km

Not to be confused with Electric sail.

ESAIL was a small satellite developed by the European Space Agency (ESA) in partnership with LuxSpace and ExactEarth.^[1][2][3] Its objective was worldwide tracking of ships using their automatic identification systems (AIS)^[4][5][6] for fisheries monitoring, fleet management, environmental protection, and security monitoring.^[7][8][9] The satellite was launched in September 2020 on the Vega flight VV16 from Guiana Space Centre.^{[10][11][12][13][14]} In a record-breaking technology demonstration, the satellite managed to process more than 2,000,000 messages from 70,000 different ships in a single day, representing a 15% to 20% improvement over previous satellites.^[15][16][17]

See also

[edit]

• List of European Space Agency programmes and missions

References

[edit]

1. ^ "1st High-performance Microsatellite Made in Luxembourg Launches". Chronicle.lu. Retrieved 2025-11-24.
2. ^ "ESAIL maritime satellite ready for launch". space-agency.public.lu. 2020-06-14. Retrieved 2025-11-24.
3. ^ "Watching the ships go by, from space". space-agency.public.lu. 2020-03-02. Retrieved 2025-11-24.
4. ^ "ESAIL maritime satellite launched". www.esa.int. Retrieved 2025-11-24.
5. ^ "ESAIL". Gunter's Space Page. Retrieved 2025-11-24.
6. ^ "SatNOGS DB - ESAIL". db.satnogs.org. Retrieved 2025-11-24.
7. ^ Boucher, Marc (2020-06-20). "In focus - The ship tracking ESAIL satellite". SpaceQ Media Inc. Retrieved 2025-11-24.
8. ^ "ESAIL Maritime Microsatellite - eoPortal". www.eoportal.org. Archived from the original on 2024-09-10. Retrieved 2025-11-24.
9. ^ "Satellites for safer seas". www.esa.int. Retrieved 2025-11-24.
10. ^ "exactEarth Announces Successful Launch of the ESAIL Microsatellite". SpaceRef.
11. ^ "DLR – ESAIL microsatellite launched with satellite platform". www.dlr.de. Retrieved 2025-11-24.
12. ^ "ESAIL Satellite Mission Summary | CEOS Database". database.eohandbook.com. Retrieved 2025-11-24.
13. ^ "ExactEarth Announces Successful Launch Of The ESAIL Microsatellite | Ocean News & Technology". 2020-09-09. Retrieved 2025-11-24.
14. ^ "ESAIL's first map of global shipping". Space Daily. Retrieved 2025-11-24.
15. ^ "ESAIL Microsatellite Captures 2,000,000 Messages From 70,000 Ships at Sea in a Single Day". SciTechDaily. 2021-04-03. Retrieved 2025-11-24.
16. ^ Kellner, Jonas (2021-04-27). "Rocket Factory Augsburg signs further launch contracts". Rocket Factory Augsburg. Retrieved 2025-11-24.
17. ^ "Rocket Factory Augsburg unterzeichnet weitere Startverträge". OHB SE (in German). Retrieved 2025-11-24.

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