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The ESAIL microsatellite for tracking ships worldwide – developed under ESA's Partnership Projects programme – has been launched last night aboard an Arianespace Vega from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. ESAIL is the first satellite of its kind produced and assembled in Luxembourg by the company LuxSpace, involving a large number of European small and medium-sized enterprises, with the support of the Luxembourg Space Agency and other ESA member states.
ESAIL was one of 53 satellites on Arianespace's rideshare adapter for Small Satellites Mission Service and was deployed into a Sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of more than 500 km. ESAIL will track ships worldwide by detecting messages that ships radio-broadcast with their automatic identification...
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