Ørsted Satellite 25 Year Anniversary

On February 23, 2024, the first Danish satellite ØRSTED celebrated its 25^th anniversary. It has proven to be a tremendous success mapping the Earth’s magnetic field to unprecedented accuracy and paving the way for the ESA SWARM constellation. The official Ørsted mission ended when the SWARM mission was launched 22 November 2013, ensuring a continuous science data time series since February 1999. In 2016, the ground station suffered mechanical breakdown of the antenna positioner, but due to lack of funding, no effort was undertaken to repair it. An effort was made before its 20^th anniversary to check if the satellite was still active, and this was confirmed. However, at that time the heartbeat TM data could not be fully decoded. Approaching the 25^th anniversary, a new effort was made and this time with success. Housekeeping TM data are now received, decoded and stored at every pass. These data reveal that the satellite subsystems are in good health. Presently, any changes in the status of the science instruments since end of mission are unknown due to lack of TC capability to command downlinking of science data. Restoring of TC capability will be attempted.