BRITE-CA 1

Spacecraft nº:

Canada spacecraft nº: 46

Launch data: Designation  40020 / 14033L Launch date  19 June 2014 - 19:11 UT Launch site  Dombarovsky, LC-370/13 Launch vehicle  Dnepr Mission  Astronomy, Technology Earth orbit: Perigee / Apogee  619 x 745 km Eccentricity   Inclination   98.0° Period  98.3 min

Spacecraft data:

Description:

• CanX-3 (Canadian Advanced Nanospace eXperiments), also known as BRITE (BRIght-star Target Explorer), is a mission planned to make photometric observations of some of the brightest starts in the sky in order to examine these stars for variability. The observations have a precision at least 10 times better than achievable using ground-based observations, and it is packaged inside a CanX-class nanosatellite.
• The Principal Investigator for the BRITE mission is Emeritus professor Anthony F. J. Moffat Département de physique, Université de Montréal. Prof. Jaymie Matthews (University of British Columbia), Prof. Stefan Mochnacki and Prof. Emeritus Slavek Rucinski (University of Toronto) are also part of the Canadian BRITE team. The Austrian Co-Principal Investigator is Professor Werner W. Weiss, University of Vienna.
• The design is a 20 cm cube, chosen to accommodate the main telescope. It leverages a number of technologies qualified on CanX-2 and incorporates SFL's high-performance attitude control system, using reaction wheels developed in collaboration with Sinclair Interplanetary.

Mission details:

• On Jun 19, 2014 launch of a Dnepr rocket from the Yasniy missile base put a record 38 payloads in sun-synchronous orbits ranging from 550 to 610 km at perigee and 620 to 715 km at apogee.
• BRITE-Toronto and BRITE-Montreal are Canadian astroseismology observatories with small telescopes for observation of oscillations of bright stars. It is believed that BRITE-Montreal failed to separate from the Dnepr final stage and remains in its deployer in a 608 x 1453 km x 97.9 deg orbit. (The Dnepr final stage continues propulsive burning while deploying its payloads, and always ends up in a higher apogee orbit.)

External links:

• EOportal.org Satellite description
• Satellite tracking: Real time satellite tracking