Country of origin Canada
Austria
Poland Launch mass 10 kilograms (22 lb) | Applications Astronomy Regime Low Earth | |
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Bus Generic Nanosatellite Bus Dimensions 20 centimetres (7.9 in) cube | ||
Bright Target Explorer or BRITE, also known as Canadian Advanced Nanospace eXperiment 3 (CanX-3) is a constellation of six nanosatellites operated by a consortium of universities from Canada, Austria and Poland.
The BRITE satellites were designed by the Institute for Aerospace Studies at the University of Toronto under the Canadian Advanced Nanospace eXperiment Program. The satellites is built around the Generic Nanosatellite Bus, a cube-shaped spacecraft with sides of 20 centimetres (7.9 in) which was first used in current BRITE version for the satellite CanX-3. One satellite is called BRITE-Toronto while the other is called BRITE-Montreal.
BRITE Constellation was included in the #7 entry in the Top Ten Science Stories of 2013, as chosen by Bob McDonald, host of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) radio show Quirks & Quarks, and the main science journalist for CBC radio and television.
Mission
The satellite is intended for astro-photometry of the brightest stars in single wavelength band. UniBRITE-1, BRITE-Toronto and Heweliusz BRITE-PL photometers are sensitive to the red light, while BRITE-Montreal, Lem BRITE-PL and BRITE-AUSTRIA are sensitive to the blue light.