LONDON, THURSDAY, AUGUST 8, 2024: Blue Skies Space, a leader in the provision of space science data to the global research community, has announced the scheduled launch of its Mauve science satellite for October 2025. The satellite will be launched on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket as part of the Transporter-15 rideshare programme and is being built by a consortium of European companies, including C3S and ISISPACE.
Mauve is Blue Skies Space’s first satellite and is equipped with a 13 cm telescope that will observe hundreds of stars in the Ultraviolet and visible wavelengths. The data will provide a greater understanding of their magnetic activity, powerful flares, and the impact on the habitability of neighbouring exoplanets.
Prof Giovanna Tinetti, Chief Scientist and Co-founder of Blue Skies Space, commented: “The launch of Mauve will help accelerate space science by unlocking greater access to more time-domain, Ultraviolet data complementing the larger facilities such as the Hubble Space Telescope.”
Academics sit at the heart of Blue Skies Space’s science programmes, with researchers who sign up before launch being able to lead and shape the global research collaboration, directing where in space the Mauve satellite looks and how long it looks for during its three-year mission. Early participants already include researchers from Boston University, the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Rice University, Vanderbilt University, and Western University.
Dr Marcell Tessenyi, CEO and Co-founder of Blue Skies Space, said: “We are delighted to confirm the launch date for Mauve. It is a crucial step in our mission to accelerate the supply of space science data and making it accessible to any researcher, anywhere in the world.
Mauve’s rapid development timeline—less than three years from concept to launch—represents a new paradigm in the swift delivery of science satellites and their essential datasets.”
Learn more about Mauve: https://bssl.space/mauve/
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 101082738.
About Blue Skies Space
Blue Skies Space is a company pioneering a new model to deliver high-quality space science data in accelerated timescales to the global scientific community helping them to answer humanity’s greatest scientific questions. Through a fleet of low-Earth orbit satellites, the company aims to serve the global demand for high-quality science data across many research areas including the monitoring of stars, understanding what the atmospheres of faraway exoplanets are made of, as well as the composition of asteroids in our Solar System.
With offices in the UK and Italy, Blue Skies Space has assembled an experienced team who have previously worked at organisations such as NASA, Airbus, Surrey Satellite Technology, Caltech and UCL, bringing a wealth of expertise in space science, satellite engineering, satellite construction and operations.