TUGSAT-1, also known as BRITE-Austria and CanX-3B, is the first

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioisotope ...

. It is an

optical astronomy Visible-light astronomy encompasses a wide variety of observations via telescopes that are sensitive in the range of visible light (optical telescopes). Visible-light astronomy is part of optical astronomy, and differs from astronomies based on in ...

spacecraft operated by the

Graz University of Technology Graz University of Technology (german: link=no, Technische Universität Graz, short ''TU Graz'') is one of five universities in Styria, Austria. It was founded in 1811 by Archduke John of Austria and is the oldest science and technology research ...

as part of the international BRIght-star Target Explorer programme.

Details

TUGSAT-1 was manufactured by the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

based on the

Generic Nanosatellite Bus Generic or generics may refer to: In business * Generic term, a common name used for a range or class of similar things not protected by trademark * Generic brand, a brand for a product that does not have an associated brand or trademark, other ...

, and had a mass at launch of (plus another 7 kg for the XPOD separation system). The spacecraft is cube-shaped, with each side measuring . The satellite will be used, along with five other spacecraft, to conduct photometric observations of stars with

apparent magnitude Apparent magnitude () is a measure of the brightness of a star or other astronomical object observed from Earth. An object's apparent magnitude depends on its intrinsic luminosity, its distance from Earth, and any extinction of the object's li ...

of greater than 4.0 as seen from Earth. TUGSAT-1 was one of the first two BRITE satellites to be launched, along with the Austro-Canadian

UniBRITE-1 UniBRITE-1 is, along with TUGSAT-1, one of the first two Austrian satellites to be launched. Along with TUGSAT, it operates as part of the BRIght Target Explorer constellation of satellites. The two spacecraft were launched aboard the same rocke ...

spacecraft. Four more satellites, two Canadian and two Polish, were launched at later dates.

Launch

The TUGSAT-1 spacecraft was launched through the University of Toronto's

Nanosatellite Launch System The Nanosatellite Launch System (NLS) is a series of satellite launch missions launched 2003–2010, coordinated by the Space Flight Laboratory (SFL) of the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS). NLS has provided low-cost ...

programme, as part of the NLS-8 launch, along with

and

AAUSAT3 AAUSat-3, (Aalborg University CubeSat-3), is the third CubeSat built and operated by students from the Aalborg University in Denmark. It was launched on 25 February 2013 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in India on a Polar Satellite Launch ...

. The NLS-8 launch was subcontracted to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), who placed the satellites into orbit using a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) in the PSLV-CA configuration, flying from the First Launch Pad at the

Satish Dhawan Space Centre Satish Dhawan Space Centre - SDSC (formerly Sriharikota Range - SHAR) is a rocket launch centre (spaceport) operated by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). It is located in Sriharikota, Tirupati district of Andhra Pradesh. Sriharikota R ...

. The NLS spacecraft were secondary payloads on the rocket, whose primary mission was to deploy the Franco-Indian

SARAL SARAL (''S''atellite with ''AR''gos and ''AL''tiKa) is a cooperative altimetry technology mission of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES). SARAL performs altimetric measurements designed to st ...

ocean research satellite. Canada's

Sapphire Sapphire is a precious gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum, consisting of aluminium oxide () with trace amounts of elements such as iron, titanium, chromium, vanadium, or magnesium. The name sapphire is derived via the Latin "sapphir ...

and NEOSSat-1 spacecraft, and the United Kingdom's STRaND-1, were also carried by the same rocket under separate launch contracts. The launch took place at 12:31 UTC on 25 February 2013, and the rocket deployed all of its payloads successfully.

References

{{BRITE Spacecraft launched in 2013 Satellites of Austria Space telescopes First artificial satellites of a country 2013 in Austria Space program of Austria Graz University of Technology Spacecraft launched by PSLV rockets

Details

Launch

See also

References