Photo from open sources
Night sky with moon and planets covered with myriad stars and showing flying comets, attracts the attention of even those people who are indifferent to astronomy. Young Russian experts decided to bring the night sky to the black canvas a new bright glowing object that will be perfectly visible with Earth with the naked eye.
Students at Moscow Polytechnic University have developed artificial satellite “Lighthouse”, which will become in the dark the brightest object in the sky after the moon. Creating and running this devices are a crowdfunding project – money for this venture donated on the domestic Boomstarter website residents of Russia.
One of the goals of the project is to show that space is accessible space for research by small scientific collectives. However, there are other important tasks that set in front of them are Russian students. The brightness of the pyramidal satellite used to study the apparent stellar magnitude of small-sized spacecraft. In addition, the Lighthouse will allow you to explore space debris in low Earth orbit. Finally in at the end of the trip the device will be activated experimental braking system that will lower the satellite down, letting it burn in the atmosphere.
However, the main interest of the world community in the “Mayak” caused by another. As mentioned above, domestic ultra-small the satellite will become the brightest object in the night sky, not counting the moon, whose brightness on the scale of visible magnitude can reach minus 13 – minus 12 units. So far, a similar record belongs International Space Station, its brightness is minus 6 units. For the Sun, for example, this indicator is minus 27, and for Venus at the peak – minus 5. The “Lighthouse” will have at least brightness minus 10. Recall that the brighter the celestial body or object, the less is their apparent magnitude.
Dimensions of the satellite are 340.5 per 100 per 100 millimeters. The spacecraft is equipped with a power source, system control, braking system, as well as a set of solar reflectors that will make the Lighthouse visible in the night sky. Weight devices – only 3.6 kilograms. Its launch is scheduled for 14 the day of the current month on board the Soyuz-2.1 launch vehicle.
Moon Russia
