The first Austrian nanosatellite BRITE-Austria/TUGSAT‑1—a success story

Abstract

In February 2013, the first Austrian nanosatellite BRITE-Austria/TUGSAT‑1 was launched into orbit to observe the brightness variations of massive luminous stars. Although the mission was originally planned to last only two years, BRITE-Austria has been providing scientific data at a high quality standard for more than eight years. The natural degradation of the systems on board over time as well as the impact of radiation, especially on the light-sensitive detectors, led to a decrease in efficiency and data quality. To ensure the continuous operation and a high level of data quality, several countermeasures were successfully introduced over the years, some of which are highlighted in this paper.The BRITE mission has shown impressively that, with the help of small and inexpensive satellites, even highly demanding scientific objectives can be achieved. The BRITE satellites have delivered new insights into the physical nature of stars, their pulsations, and “heartbeats”, as described in numerous publications, and even observed the complete development of a nova in the Carina field.