Could the world's first private space telescope help find stars with habitable exoplanets? The answer might surprise you. The Mauve telescope, developed by Blue Skies Space, is set to search for stars that could host habitable exoplanets in their orbits. But here's where it gets controversial: while the sun is not a very active star, many of its siblings are much more temperamental. The bursts of radiation that some stars produce are so intense and so frequent that they virtually sear any object in their vicinity, preventing any possible life from emerging. Mauve will help astronomers pick out those that are more likely to host habitable exoplanets by tracking the flaring of hundreds of stars. But here's the part most people miss: the last dedicated mission to observe stellar ultraviolet light ended in 1996. The legendary Hubble Space Telescope can perform such measurements, but availability of observing time is limited. Hundreds of science teams from all over the world compete for observing time on the veteran space telescope, pursuing a multitude of challenging astronomical research projects that can't be accomplished by any other star-watching machine. Since scientific interest in exoplanets is on the rise, Blue Skies Space decided to cover the increasing demand for observations of stellar flares with a small, low-cost telescope and sell the resulting data to scientists worldwide through a yearly subscription model. But here's where it gets thought-provoking: the space agencies do a fantastic job at delivering very high-quality space telescopes, but sometimes it can take a long time. And when these satellites are operational, like the Hubble Space Telescope or James Webb, people have to apply and hope they get the observing time they need. But not all science requires a very large and complicated satellite. With the low-cost Mauve, Blue Skies Space is pioneering a new approach to astronomical research from space. Although the new commercial space ethos of building satellites fast and cheap has dominated Earth imaging from space for years, deep-space astronomy has so far been headed mostly in the opposite direction — trending toward more complex machines worth billions of dollars. Mauve, built in less than three years, is Blue Skies Space's first satellite to launch, although it was conceived after another mission, called Twinkle, which is still in the works. Twinkle, expected to make it to space later this decade, is a larger satellite, weighing 330 pounds and carrying an 18-inch telescope. Like Mauve, Twinkle will look for exoplanets around nearby stars and gather information about their chemical composition. But Mauve, Tessenyi said, will help the researchers zoom in on the most promising stellar systems, to make Twinkle's work easier. Despite initial skepticism among scientists whether the new space way could work for astronomy, Blue Skies Space has seen a lot of interest in both of their missions. Nineteen universities from all over the world have already signed up for the data, which will begin streaming to Earth early next year. Mauve will orbit Earth at an altitude of 310 miles for at least three years. If the project is successful, Blue Skies Space might add more satellites to its fleet in the future. The company is already studying a concept of a successor to Mauve, a more potent UV-observer Mauve+. 'We finance the satellites upfront, put them into space, and once the mission is operational, we make data available to users and over time we recover the cost of the construction and operations,' Tessenyi said. 'If the satellite is a success and we make a surplus, we reinvest that into our subsequent satellites and we grow the company to deliver more satellites using this model.' Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community@space.com.
