Croatia’s first satellite captures its first views of …

The Debut ImagePublished via Mission’s Facebook page on January 31, a cloud-covered overview of the Mediterranean lands famous for its crystal blue sea and scenic coast.

“Although our country is partially overcast, we have identified the contours of land and mountain areas through them,” said the team behind the mission in the Facebook post. “Most importantly – Croatia is now among the countries that have their own images taken from orbiting.”

The satellite also sent a short video home and another image showing Bulgaria, which is more to the east on the Black Sea coast.

The crowd-funded mission was composed of the Croatian society for education outside the box and the Czech company Spacemanic.

The $ 124,000 project aims to encourage interest in astronomy and space in Croatia and collect data using a set of on board sensors.

Room enthusiasts will be able to interact with Crocube’s data and images via a mobile app that shows freshly downloaded images.

The first set of pictures was caught on January 28, just over a month after Crocube’s launch. Satellite circles Earth in height of 510 miles (510 kilometers) and remain in orbit for about 5 years, which gradually spirales back towards the planet. At the end of its mission, it burns up into the Earth’s atmosphere.