The Preliminary Mauve Science Programme: Science themes identified for the first year of operations
Abstract
Mauve is a low-cost small satellite developed and operated by Blue Skies Space Ltd. The payload features a 13 cm telescope connected with a fibre that feeds into a UV-Vis spectrometer. The detector covers the 200-700 nm range in a single shot, obtaining low resolution spectra at R~20-65. Mauve has launched on 28th November 2025, reaching a 510 km Low-Earth Sun-synchronous orbit. The satellite will enable UV and visible observations of a variety of stellar objects in our Galaxy, filling the gaps in the ultraviolet space-based data. The researchers that have already joined the mission have defined the science themes, observational strategy and targets that Mauve will observe in the first year of operations. To date 10 science themes have been developed by the Mauve science collaboration for year 1, with observational strategies that include both long duration monitoring and short cadence snapshots. Here, we describe these themes and the science that Mauve will undertake in its first year of operations.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2512.16675,
title = {The Preliminary Mauve Science Programme: Science themes identified for the first year of operations},
author = {Mauve Science Collaboration and Marcel Agueros and Don Dixon and Chuanfei Dong and Girish M. Duvvuri and Patrick Flanagan and Christopher Johns-Krull and Hongpeng Lu and Hiroyuki Maehara and Kosuke Namekata and Alejandro Nunez and Elena Pancino and Sharmila Rani and Anusha Ravikumar and T. A. A. Sigut and Keivan Stassun and Jamie Stewart and Krisztián Vida and Emma Whelan and Benjamin Wilcock and Sharafina Razin and Arianna Saba and Giovanna Tinetti and Marcell Tessenyi and Jonathan Tennyson},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2512.16675},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
18 pages, 16 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication on RASTI