With the nanosatellite PRETTY, the fifth satellite “Made in Austria” will go into space in March. Measuring just 10 by 10 by 30 centimeters, the Cubesat is part of the European Space Agency’s global environmental and weather observations and is intended to aid climate change research.
The Viennese company Beyond Gravity (formerly Ruag Space), the Technical University (TU) Graz and Seibersdorf Labor GmbH are mainly responsible for the new red-white-red cubesat called PRETTY (the acronym stands for Passive REflectometry and DosimetrY).
Question mark after start date
PRETTY is scheduled to take off on March 9 from the European Spaceport at Kourou in French Guiana aboard a “Vega C” launch vehicle. However, after the first commercial launch of the new rocket failed on December 21, there is a big question mark over the launch date.
When PRETTY launches into space, the small satellite will take accurate height measurements, for example of glaciers and sea waves, and examine radiation in the near-Earth. According to the director of Beyond Gravity Austria, Manfred Sust, a new measurement method is used here.
The first Austro satellites launched in 2013
The very first Austrian satellites, UniBRITE and TUGSAT-1 (pictured above), were launched on February 25, 2013 aboard an Indian rocket. The Cubesats from the University of Vienna and the Technical University of Graz, along with three other identical probes from Poland and Canada, form the “BRITE Constellation,” which astronomers use to study the structure of bright, massive stars.
Source: Krone
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