UniBRITE and TUGSAT-1, Austrias first satellites
7 years ago, on the 25th of February 2013 two small nanosatellites on board an Indian PSLV-CA rocket launched from the Satish Dhawan FLP.
UniBBRITE-1 and TUGSAT-1 were the first two Austrian satellites to be launched. They operate as part of the BRIght Target Explorer constellation.
UniBRITE-1 is an optical astronomy spacecraft operated by the University of Vienna, just like TUGSAT-1, which is operated by the Graz University of Technology.
Both satellites, along with four other satellites are used to conduct photometric observations of starts with apparent magnitude of greater than 4.0 as seen from Earth. UniBrite-1 observes the stars in the red color ranges, whereas TUGSAT-1 observes the stars in the bluecolor ranges.
Both satellites are part of the BRITE Constellation, which "investigates the stellar structure and evolution of the brightest stars in the sky and their interaction with the local environment."