TY - JOUR
T1 - The Colorado Ultraviolet Transit Experiment Mission Overview
AU - France, Kevin
AU - Fleming, Brian
AU - Egan, Arika
AU - Desert, Jean Michel
AU - Fossati, Luca
AU - Koskinen, Tommi T.
AU - Nell, Nicholas
AU - Petit, Pascal
AU - Vidotto, Aline A.
AU - Beasley, Matthew
AU - DeCicco, Nicholas
AU - Sreejith, Aickara Gopinathan
AU - Suresh, Ambily
AU - Baumert, Jared
AU - Cauley, P. Wilson
AU - D’Angelo, Carolina Villarreal
AU - Hoadley, Keri
AU - Kane, Robert
AU - Kohnert, Richard
AU - Lambert, Julian
AU - Ulrich, Stefan
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.
PY - 2023/2/1
Y1 - 2023/2/1
N2 - Atmospheric escape is a fundamental process that affects the structure, composition, and evolution of many planets. The signatures of escape are detectable on close-in, gaseous exoplanets orbiting bright stars, owing to the high levels of extreme-ultraviolet irradiation from their parent stars. The Colorado Ultraviolet Transit Experiment (CUTE) is a CubeSat mission designed to take advantage of the near-ultraviolet stellar brightness distribution to conduct a survey of the extended atmospheres of nearby close-in planets. The CUTE payload is a magnifying near-ultraviolet (2479-3306 Å) spectrograph fed by a rectangular Cassegrain telescope (206 mm × 84 mm); the spectrogram is recorded on a back-illuminated, UV-enhanced CCD. The science payload is integrated into a 6U Blue Canyon Technology XB1 bus. CUTE was launched into a polar, low-Earth orbit on 2021 September 27 and has been conducting this transit spectroscopy survey following an on-orbit commissioning period. This paper presents the mission motivation, development path, and demonstrates the potential for small satellites to conduct this type of science by presenting initial on-orbit science observations. The primary science mission is being conducted in 2022-2023, with a publicly available data archive coming online in 2023.
AB - Atmospheric escape is a fundamental process that affects the structure, composition, and evolution of many planets. The signatures of escape are detectable on close-in, gaseous exoplanets orbiting bright stars, owing to the high levels of extreme-ultraviolet irradiation from their parent stars. The Colorado Ultraviolet Transit Experiment (CUTE) is a CubeSat mission designed to take advantage of the near-ultraviolet stellar brightness distribution to conduct a survey of the extended atmospheres of nearby close-in planets. The CUTE payload is a magnifying near-ultraviolet (2479-3306 Å) spectrograph fed by a rectangular Cassegrain telescope (206 mm × 84 mm); the spectrogram is recorded on a back-illuminated, UV-enhanced CCD. The science payload is integrated into a 6U Blue Canyon Technology XB1 bus. CUTE was launched into a polar, low-Earth orbit on 2021 September 27 and has been conducting this transit spectroscopy survey following an on-orbit commissioning period. This paper presents the mission motivation, development path, and demonstrates the potential for small satellites to conduct this type of science by presenting initial on-orbit science observations. The primary science mission is being conducted in 2022-2023, with a publicly available data archive coming online in 2023.
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U2 - 10.3847/1538-3881/aca8a2
DO - 10.3847/1538-3881/aca8a2
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85147168172
SN - 0004-6256
VL - 165
JO - Astronomical Journal
JF - Astronomical Journal
IS - 2
M1 - 63
ER -