SIMBA (satellite)

SIMBA (Sun-earth IMBAlance) was a climatology satellite mission by the European Space Agency (ESA) in the form of a 3U CubeSat.^[1][2][3] Its goal was to help quantify how much heat from the Sun is being retained within Earth atmosphere. For this, SIMBA measured Earth's radiation budget and total solar irradiance using a miniaturized radiometer instrument.^[4][5] The satellite was launched in September 2020 aboard a Vega rocket and remained operational until December 2022.^[6][7][8][9] It deorbited in August 2024.^[10][11][12]

SIMBA

Mission type	Climatology
Operator	ESA
COSPAR ID	2020-061H
Spacecraft properties
Spacecraft type	3U CubeSat
Manufacturer	Innovative Solutions In Space (Delft, Netherlands), KU Leuven, Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium
Start of mission
Launch date	3 September 2020, 01:51:10 UTC
Rocket	Vega, flight VV16
Launch site	Guiana Space Centre
End of mission
Declared	31 December 2022
Decay date	14 August 2024
Orbital parameters
Reference system	Geocentric
Regime	Sun-synchronous
Altitude	530 km
Inclination	97.51 deg
General Support Technology Programme (GSTP) ← OPS-SAT PICASSO →

See also

• List of European Space Agency programmes and missions