MIMOSA

MIMOSA (short for Micromeasurements of Satellite Acceleration) is a Czech satellite created for the purpose of measuring the forces of non-gravitational origin affecting the movement of Earth’s satellites in low orbits. It is the sixth satellite developed in the Czech Republic (Czechoslovakia). It was financed from domestic funds (including the start) and the price of the project was approximately 57 million Czech crowns.

The project was carried out by the Astronomical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and the satellite was manufactured by the Czech company Space Devices. MIMOSA was launched using the Rokot rocket from Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia on 30 June 2003. The satellite’s surface was covered by 17 solar panels and it weighed 65 kilograms. Almost all its instruments were made in the Czech Republic. MIMOSA’s initial orbit’s perigee was 320 kilometres and apogee 845 kilometres. Its orbital period was 96 minutes.

Approximately an hour and a half after the rocket had started, the observatory in Panská Ves received the first signal from the satellite. After several days, however, it turned out that the satellite’s accelerometer was blocked and that the satellite could not perform the planned measurements. MIMOSA burnt in the atmosphere on 11 December 2011.