Four years in space: Austrian BRITE satellites

TUGSAT-1 and UniBRITE have been in space since 2013. During this time 350 stars have been observed, new variable stars discovered, and 12 scientific papers published in international journals. The nanosats of the BRITE mission focus on the brightest, hottest and most massive stars in the immediate neighbourhood of the universe. Since 25th February 2013 the two white-red-white (Austrian) satellites - TUGSAT-1 and UniBRITE - have been orbiting the Earth, together with the Polish and Canadian satellites, which were launched later. "The satellites are now going into their fifth year of operation - the mission was originally planned for two years - and they're still in an excellent condition. We're counting on at least another two years of gathering high-quality data on the brightness of selected stars. So we're more than satisfied," says Otto Koudelka, who along with his team from TU Graz's Institute of Communication Networks and Satellite Communications is responsible for the construction of TUGSAT-1 and the technical operation of the two Austrian satellites and the mission's ground station in Graz.