The world’s first commercial space telescope has released its first measurements as it begins its journey to help track nearby stars that might host habitable exoplanets.
The suitcase-sized satellite, called Mauve, launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket last November and is the first in a planned fleet of small commercial spacecraft designed to provide observing time to astronomers around the world.
While Earth observation and telecommunications have for years been dominated by commercial providers, astronomy has so far been fully in the hands of government-funded agencies and institutions. But the outfit behind Mauve — the London-based company Blue Skies Space, a spin-out from University College London — realized that a new, customer-driven approach might provide a faster route to fill gaps in the scientific understanding of the universe.
On Feb. 9, after months of instrument checks, Mauve pointed at a star known as eta Ursa Majoris, capturing a five-second observation in the visible and ultraviolet portions of the light spectrum. Located some 104 light-years from Earth, eta Ursa Majoris is one of the brightest stars in the constellation Great Bear (Ursa Major). Much hotter than our sun, the star is especially bright in ultraviolet light, which is Mauve’s specialty.
“We wanted to look at a stable star, which behaves in a constant way over time and for which there has already been high-quality spectra collected from other instruments in the past,” Blue Skies Space CEO Marcell Tessenyi told Space.com.
Ultraviolet emissions can be measured by the Hubble Space Telescope, but that iconic observatory also covers other areas and is in very high demand. The last dedicated mission to observe stellar ultraviolet light was the International Ultraviolet Explorer, which ran out of fuel in 1996. The Blue Skies team realized that, with advances in satellite technology, a small, privately funded space telescope can provide an opportunity to obtain such measurements.
Ultraviolet light offers the best opportunity to observe stellar flares, flashes of high-energy radiation from the magnetically dense regions known as sunspots. Flares flush the environment around the star with streams of energetic particles, which may affect the habitability of planets in the star’s vicinity.
Solar flares produced by the sun can cause radio blackouts and geomagnetic storms on Earth, which interfere with radio communications and affect satellites in orbit. But the sun is a relatively quiet star, and Earth’s magnetic field is strong enough to protect our planet against those outbursts. Mars, on the other hand, lacks a global magnetic field and therefore has its thin atmosphere constantly eroded by space weather.
By monitoring the activity of nearby stars, Mauve will help scientists better home in on those that might host exoplanets that could potentially harbor life. The mission is expected to begin delivering scientific data in the next two weeks, Tessenyi said.
“We are now doing the same set of measurements with all kinds of different stars to work out the behavior of the instrument,” said Tessenyi. “As soon as this phase is closed, we are officially starting the science operations.”
Research institutions from all over the world have already subscribed to the mission, including teams from the U.S., Japan and multiple European countries.
Cash flow from Mauve’s operations will help Blue Skies Space complete the development of its next mission, called Twinkle, a 220-pound (100-kilogram) satellite designed to directly observe nearby exoplanets and measure the compositions of their atmospheres.
Tessenyi said the company is currently in discussions with its scientific customers to see what other areas of study they would like to see covered with dedicated commercial missions. The company is also currently working with the Italian Space Agency to develop the concept for a satellite constellation to measure radio waves emitted by cosmic sources from the orbit of the moon.
“It’s a fascinating opportunity that we have here because, obviously, the space sector has evolved a lot over the last decade, whether it is regular cost-effective launch opportunities or the commoditization of lower-cost platforms for low Earth orbit satellites,” Tessenyi said. “There are plenty of opportunities for many satellites to do space science.”
Still, he thinks that commercial astronomy will always remain in the shadow of large government-funded space missions that push technology to new limits and open completely new vistas.
“The space agencies are doing an incredible job with pushing the technology, developing these incredibly clever and complex facilities like James Webb and others, which are really progressing knowledge and technological capabilities,” Tessenyi said. “We, on the other hand, are operating more in the domain of reusing existing components, benefitting from historic investments from the agencies into technologies, and reusing them in novel ways to try to increment the provision of data.”
The Mauve satellite was developed and built in three years, an extremely fast timeline compared to the frequently decades-long development timelines of government-funded space missions. The observatory, built by a group of companies from Hungary, the Netherlands, Italy and Latvia, is expected to remain in Earth orbit for at least three years.
