The BRITE mission

BRITE-Austria/TUGSAT-1 represents a challenging scientific and technological mission. The satellite is the first in a constellation of currently 5 nanosatellites with the mission name BRITE, where BRITE stands for BRIght Target Explorer.

BRITE-Constellation is currently the only active space mission in the field of asteroseismology. It is focused on the research area of ​​stellar structure and stellar evolution of apparently bright and mostly massive stars. In addition, the photometric data also allow important investigations of the interaction between the star itself and its circumstellar medium, with relevance for exoplanets. For this first Austrian satellite, an instrument was chosen as the scientific payload, which measures the fluctuations in brightness of massive, very bright stars with the help of differential photometry with unprecedented accuracy.