Receivers in space
Tags transmit data to a receiver in space, which in turn transmit the data back to Earth
From ISS to CubeSat
Until spring 2022, the International Space Station (ISS) served as the primary receiving station for signals from ICARUS transmitters. Orbiting Earth at an altitude of around 400 kilometers, the ISS operates comparatively close to the planet—an advantage for ICARUS, whose transmitters are designed to use very little power. This low orbit allowed researchers to keep energy consumption on the animals to a minimum.
From 2023, ICARUS began transitioning to a new generation of space infrastructure based on commercially operated small satellites, known as CubeSats. These satellites typically weigh less than 30 kilograms and can be launched on smaller, more flexible rockets. Their relatively low cost and scalability make them a key technology for the future of space engineering, opening up new possibilities for both science and commercial applications. The ICARUS payloads onboard these CubeSats are developed by Talos, a Munich-based company specializing in satellite positioning systems.
A smaller, more powerful receiver
At the heart of this transition is a redesigned ICARUS receiver, which is both smaller and significantly more capable than its predecessor. Housed in a cube with an edge length of just 10 centimeters and weighing around two kilograms, the new system replaces hardware that once included a three-meter antenna and a computer the size of a desktop PC on the ISS.
Despite its compact size, the new receiver is far more efficient. It consumes only a tenth of the energy while being able to communicate with four times as many animal transmitters simultaneously. Data can be transmitted faster, and researchers can reprogram tags more easily, enabling more responsive and efficient data collection.
Global coverage in low-Earth orbit
Like the ISS, the new ICARUS CubeSats operate in low-Earth orbit, at an altitude of roughly 500 kilometers. From this vantage point, each satellite circles the planet multiple times a day, eventually passing over every region of the Earth’s surface.
Unlike the ISS, however, these satellites can extend coverage to polar regions, which were previously beyond reach. This means that animals can now be tracked virtually anywhere on Earth—from deserts and oceans to polar ice and the open sky—providing a truly global view of animal movement and environmental conditions.
ICARUS 2.0: a network in space
The first of the new ICARUS receivers was launched in November 2025 aboard the GENA-OT satellite of the University of the Bundeswehr Munich. While GENA-OT is not an ICARUS satellite, it carries an ICARUS receiver as a hosted payload. In May 2026, ICARUS reached a new milestone with the launch of its first owned and operated satellite, RAVEN, carrying with it its own onboard receiver.
Together, these two missions mark the beginning of ICARUS 2.0: a new, independent, European-led space infrastructure. Over the coming years, the system will expand to a constellation of at least five dedicated ICARUS satellites, operated jointly with industry partner Talos and the Max Planck Society. Including the receiver on GENA-OT, this will bring the total to six ICARUS receivers in low-Earth orbit.
This growing network will provide up to six updates per day from animals equipped with lightweight transmitters, enabling near real-time tracking of their movements and behavior. As a result, data collection will become more frequent, reliable, and independent—advancing wildlife research and deepening our understanding of how ecosystems respond to environmental change.