Mauve, the world's first commercial space science satellite, has successfully achieved 'first light', sending back data to astronomers about the universe for the first time.
Created by Blue Skies Space Ltd ., a British space company co-founded by current King's staff and alumni, Mauve will study stars in the ultraviolet and visible light, enabling a greater understanding of their magnetic activity, stellar flares, and how they impact the habitability of nearby exoplanets – planets that orbit stars that are not our sun.
The start-up hopes the craft will pioneer a new era of exploration founded on low-cost, rapidly built space telescopes, delivering high-quality information about the universe directly to researchers.
Professor Giovanna Tinetti, Vice Dean (Research) in the Faculty of Natural, Mathematical and Engineering Sciences and co-founder of Blue Skies Space, said of the milestone, "The launch of Mauve has been a really emotional moment – seeing the project we worked hard for a number of years being sent to space!
"But as a scientist the real excitement comes when the data start flowing in: seeing the first spectrum from Mauve has suddenly made me realise that we'll soon do science with the first privately funded space science mission ever!"
Mauve used its 13 cm spectrophotometric telescope, designed to measure and collect data on the spectrum of light emitted by stars, to observe Eta Uma, a star 104 light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major or the Great Bear.
A hot, blue-white star, much hotter than the Sun, Eta UMa shines in ultraviolet light which makes it an ideal calibration target for an observatory collecting ultraviolet data like Mauve.
Dr Marcell Tesseny, CEO and co-founder Blue Skies Space, as well as an alumnus from the Department of Physics, said "Blue Skies Space was founded to provide access to space science data for scientists worldwide through a fleet of small, agile satellites. The first light from Mauve is a demonstration of this vision to serve the space science community."
Throughout its three-year mission, Mauve also hopes to gather information on early-stage planetary evolution, test theories of gravity through examination of binary star systems and chart how stars live and die – in addition to research priorities highlighted by members of the science community who sign up to Mauve's observational programme.
