Official name BRITE-PL 2
Alternative name Heweliusz
Cospar ID 2014-049B
Norad ID 40119
Launch date 2014-08-19
Launch site TSC
Launch vehicle CZ-4B
Country/Organization Poland, Canada
Type application Astronomy / Technology
Operator BRITE-PL consortium
RCS size MEDIUM
Decay date ON ORBIT
Period (min) 96.74
Inclination (deg) 97.88
Perigee (km) 590
Apogee (km) 614
Eccentricity 0.0199335548172757
Mean motion (revs. per day) 14.8852594583419
Semi-Major axis (km) 6980.135
Raan (deg) 229.6891
Arg of perigee (deg) 131.6894
Shape Box
Mass (kg) 6.8
Height (m) 0.2
Width (m) 0.2
Depth (m) 0.2
Span (m^2) 0.2
Contractors UTIAS (bus)
Propulsion None
Configuration Gryphon Bus (GNB)
Power Solar cells, batteries

BRITE-PL (BRIght-star Target Explorer - Poland), is a mission planned to make photometric observations of some of the brightest stars in the sky in order to examine these stars for variability. The observations will have a precision at least 10 times better than achievable using ground-based observations, and it is packaged inside a CanX-class nanosatellite.

The Polish Consortium supporting the BRITE-PL Project was established in October 2009 by:

  • The Space Research Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences
  • The Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences

and was chartered with the research, design and construction of scientific instruments in the international research project BRITE-PL.

Poland will run the research program with The Space Flight Laboratory of the University of Toronto which specializes in developing and manufacturing such small satellites. According to the agreement with SFL, the Canadian side will provide most of the components and subsystems necessary for the integration of the first satellite, the complete documentation, and will train a team of Polish engineers to properly carry out the integration and testing of the satellite before it is launched. In the case of the second satellite the number of components supplied from Canada will be limited. What's more, a large part of the subsystems will be developed in SRC PAS and manufactured in Poland.

Satellite COSPAR Date LS Launch Vehicle Remarks
BRITE-PL 2013-066R 2013-11-21 OREN Dnepr with DubaiSat 2, STSAT 3, SkySat 1, WNISAT 1, AprizeSat 7, AprizeSat 8, UniSat 5, Delfi-n3Xt, Dove 3, Dove 4, Triton 1, CINEMA 2, CINEMA 3, OPTOS, CubeBug 2, GOMX 1, NEE 02 Krysaor, FUNcube 1, HiNCube, ZACUBE 1, ICUBE 1, HumSat-D, PUCP-SAT 1, First-MOVE, UWE 3, VELOX P2, Pocket-PUCP, BeakerSat 1, QubeScout S1, $50SAT, Wren, BPA 3
BRITE-PL 2 2014-049B 2014-08-19 TSC CZ-4B with Gaofen 2