Brite-Constellation: A status report

The BRITE‐Constellation, short for “BRIght Target Explorer” Constellation, is a group of six nanosatellites from Austria, Poland and Canada carrying thirty millimeter aperture optical telescopes with a CCD camera. The goal of the mission is to photometrically measure low‐level oscillations and temperature variations of the brightest stars in the sky down to a visual magnitude of 4.0, with unprecedented precision and time coverage not achievable from ground in two colors. The improved three‐axis pointing performance which is a critical element that makes this high precision photometry mission feasible is a recent development by the University of Toronto’s Space Flight Laboratory. The University of Vienna and the FFG/ALR (Austria’s space agency) are financing the development of two satellites. The Polish Academy of Sciences is funding two additional satellites as well as the Canadian Space Agency resulting in six components for the constellation (© 2012 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)