BRITE-Constellation: Nanosatellites for Precision Photometry of Bright Stars

Weiß, W. W.; Ruciński, S. M.; Moffat, A. F. J.; Schwarzenberg‐Czerny, A.; Koudelka, Otto; Grant, Cordell; Zee, Robert E.; Kuschnig, R.; Mochnacki, S. M.; Matthews, J. M.; Orleański, P.; Pamyatnykh, A. A.; Pigulski, A.; Alves, J.; Guêdel, M.; Handler, G.; Wade, G. A.; Zwintz, K.

doi:10.1086/677236

Cited by 169 publications

(74 citation statements)

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“…The second target field which is currently observed is Centaurus. Up to 30 stars per field have been observed which is an increase of science data by a factor of 15 with respect to the original specification [4,5]. Figure 11 depicts a light curve obtained from BRITE-Austria measurement data of the star Eta Orionis clearly shows brightness variations due to star pulsations.…”

Section: Commissioning and Operationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Pulsations are measured with a precision of 1 mmag to probe into the interiors and ages of these target stars [1]. Astronomers expect better understanding of the properties of the intrinsically bright stars and improving the theories [5].…”

Section: The Brite Missionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Procedures for best data quality eliminating hot pixel effects on the CCD caused by radiation were elaborated by the science team [2,5].…”

Section: Commissioning and Operationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Nanosatellites—the BRITE and OPS-SAT missions

Koudelka

Unterberger

Romano

2014

Elektrotech. Inftech.

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Nanosatellites are spacecraft in the mass range between 1 and 10 kg providing a fast and low-cost possibility to test new technology in Space and gain flight heritage. The first Austrian nanosatellite TUGSAT-1/BRITE-Austria, successfully launched in 2013, and a follow-up ESA mission are described in this paper.Keywords: nanosatellites; TUGSAT-1; OPS-SAT; asteroseismology; in-orbit demonstration Nanosatelliten -die BRITE-und OPS-SAT-Missionen.Nanosatelliten sind Weltraumobjekte mit einer Masse zwischen 1 und 10 kg. Sie bieten eine rasche und kostengünstige Mög-lichkeit, neue Technologien im Weltraum zu erproben und Flugerfahrung zu sammeln. Der erste österreichische Satellit TUGSAT-1/BRITE-Austria, der erfolgreich 2013 gestartet wurde, und eine Nachfolgemission der ESA werden in diesem Artikel beschrieben. IntroductionNanosatellites are small spacecraft with a launch mass between 1 and 10 kg. The concept of so-called Cubesats was first presented in 1999 by Prof. Bob Twiggs of Stanford University and Prof. Jordi Puig-Suari. The driver behind this idea was originally purely educational. Students should have the possibility to be involved in all phases of a space mission: from design, construction, test, launch to operations and management. Commercial off-the-shelf components and piggy-back launch opportunities helped to reduce the costs of access to Space significantly. The first Cubesats were launched in 2003. While only about 50% of the first University Cubesats were successful due to a number of reasons, the situation has significantly changed in the last few years. By the end of 2013 more than 200 Cubesats had been launched with a record set in 2013. In November 2013, within 30 hours 51 Cubesats were placed into low-earth orbit by DNEPR and Minotaur rockets, notably both being former inter-continental ballistic missiles, now fortunately used for peaceful purposes.Small satellites have considerably matured since the first projects. Deficiencies which were mainly attributed to the fact that the first projects were built by less experienced teams were cured and professionally-built nanosatellites have a very good operational record of several years in orbit. Space agencies, industry and research organisations have meanwhile embraced the concept allowing to test and to validate in orbit new technology and new operational concepts within short time-frames and at a fraction of the costs of a traditional Space mission. With miniaturisation of key subsystems of a spacecraft such as attitude control, power, onboard computer and communication modules, even scientific, remote sensing and communications missions can be supported by small satellites. Spin-off companies are offering a variety of standard subsystems at low cost. In recent years, payloads for astrobiological, astronomy, earth observation, space weather, communications,

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Section: Commissioning and Operationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Brite Missionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Nanosatellites—the BRITE and OPS-SAT missions

Koudelka

Unterberger

Romano

2014

Elektrotech. Inftech.

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“…The BRITEConstellation project, however, is designed to provide six months of continuous coverage in both blue and red filters (Weiss et al 2014). BRITE-Constellation began initial data acquisition of the Orion constellation in 2013 October.…”

Section: Future Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

A COORDINATED X-RAY AND OPTICAL CAMPAIGN OF THE NEAREST MASSIVE ECLIPSING BINARY,δORIONIS Aa. III. ANALYSIS OF OPTICAL PHOTOMETRIC (MOST) AND SPECTROSCOPIC (GROUND-BASED) VARIATIONS

Pablo

Richardson

Moffat

et al. 2015

ApJ

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We report on both high-precision photometry from the Microvariability and Oscillations of Stars (MOST) space telescope and ground-based spectroscopy of the triple system δ Ori A, consisting of a binary O9.5II+early-B (Aa1 and Aa2) with P = 5.7 days, and a more distant tertiary (O9 IV P 400 > years). This data was collected in concert with X-ray spectroscopy from the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Thanks to continuous coverage for three weeks, the MOST light curve reveals clear eclipses between Aa1 and Aa2 for the first time in non-phased data. From the spectroscopy, we have a well-constrained radial velocity (RV) curve of Aa1. While we are unable to recover RV variations of the secondary star, we are able to constrain several fundamental parameters of this system and determine an approximate mass of the primary using apsidal motion. We also detected second order modulations at 1 12 separate frequencies with spacings indicative of tidally influenced oscillations. These spacings have never been seen in a massive binary, making this system one of only a handful of such binaries that show evidence for tidally induced pulsations.

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“…Therefore, there is a need for time-series of high-quality data (to detect low amplitude variations) with a sufficiently long time-base (to cover the beat periods) in photometry (brightness variations) and/or in spectroscopy (radial velocity and/or line-profile variations). Space-based observations from past and ongoing missions like Most ( [1]), CoRoT ( [2]), Kepler/K2 ( [3,4]), and Brite ( [5]) have already proven their usefulness and we still have some high hopes for (future) space-missions like Gaia ( [6]), Tess ( [7]), and Plato ( [8]). Gaia is the only mission from this list that also provides spectroscopic observations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pulsating variable stars and large spectroscopic surveys

Cat

2017

EPJ Web Conf.

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Abstract. In the past decade, the research of pulsating variable stars has taken a giant leap forward thanks to the photometric measurements provided by space missions like Most, CoRoT, Kepler/K2, and Brite. These missions have provided quasi uninterrupted photometric time-series with an ultra-high quality and a total length that is not achievable from Earth. However, many of the success stories could not have been told without ground-based spectroscopic follow-up observations. Indeed, spectroscopy has some important assets as it can provide (more) accurate information about stellar parameters (like the effective temperature, surface gravity, metallicity, and abundances that are mandatory parameters for an in-depth asteroseismic study), the radial velocity (that is important for the detection of binaries and for the confirmation of cluster membership, if applicable), and the projected rotational velocity (that allows the study of the effects of rotation on pulsations). Fortunately, several large spectroscopic surveys are (becoming) available that can be used for these purposes. For some of these surveys, sub-projects have been initiated with the specific goal to complement space-based photometry. In this review, several spectroscopic surveys are introduced and compared with each other. We show that a large amount of spectroscopic data is (becoming) available for a large variety of objects.

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BRITE-Constellation: Nanosatellites for Precision Photometry of Bright Stars

Cited by 169 publications

References 24 publications

Nanosatellites—the BRITE and OPS-SAT missions

Nanosatellites—the BRITE and OPS-SAT missions

A COORDINATED X-RAY AND OPTICAL CAMPAIGN OF THE NEAREST MASSIVE ECLIPSING BINARY,δORIONIS Aa. III. ANALYSIS OF OPTICAL PHOTOMETRIC (MOST) AND SPECTROSCOPIC (GROUND-BASED) VARIATIONS

Pulsating variable stars and large spectroscopic surveys

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