World’s Smallest Telescopes to be Launched Monday

Two small satellites, weighing less than 15 pounds each, will be launched atop an Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) Monday.

PSLV will blast off at 7:20 a.m. EST (1220 GMT), carrying the two nano-satellites, from the first launch pad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India. Once the two Bright Target Explorer (BRITE) nano-satellites, billed as the world's smallest space telescopes, are placed into orbit, they will observe the brightest stars in the night sky and also record changes in their brightness over time, reports Space.com.

Each BRITE nano-satellite is less than 8 inches (20 centimeters) wide and weighs less than 15.5 pounds (7 kilograms). One of the satellites was designed at the Space Flight Laboratory of the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies, Canada; the other one was designed in Canada, but assembled in Austria.

These BRITE satellites have been created to exhibit that nano-satellites can be designed, assembled and deployed fast and relatively cheaply. "BRITE is expected to demonstrate that nano-satellites are now capable of performance that was once thought impossible for such small spacecraft," Cordell Grant, manager of satellite systems for the Space Flight Laboratory at the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS), told Space.com.

The two satellites will be among the seven to blast off with India's PSLV rocket launch Monday. Until now, nano-satellites have been used to monitor the Earth and experiment with new technologies. BRITE is the first nano-satellite mission to be launched for observing the stars, reports redOrbit.

The two BRITE satellites are part of the planned constellation of six space telescopes to study the brightest stars in the night sky. The telescopes include two Austrian nano-satellites, a pair from Poland and a pair provided by Canada.