Agüeros, Marcel A.; Dixon, Don.; Dong, Chuanfei.; Duvvuri, Girish M.; Flanagan, Patrick F.; Johns–Krull, Christopher M.; Lu, Hongpeng.; Maehara, Hiroyuki.; Namekata, Kosuke.; Núñez, Alejandro.; Pancino, Elena.; Rani, Sharmila.; Ravikumar, Anusha.; Sigut, T.A.A.; Stassun, Keivan G.; Stewart, Jamie J.; Vida, Krisztián.; Whelan, Emma T.; Wilcock, Benjamin J.; Razin, Sharafina.; Saba, Arianna.; Stotesbury, Ian.; Tinetti, Giovanna.; Tessenyi, Marcell.; Tennyson, Jonathan. (2026).Ìý.ÌýRAS Techniques and Instruments, 5.Ìý
Mauve is a low-cost small satellite built and operated by Blue Skies Space Ltd. It carries a 13 cm telescope that sends light through a fiber to a UV-Vis spectrometer, an instrument that measures ultraviolet and visible light. This detector can capture a full spectrum from 200 to 700 nanometers in one exposure, although at relatively low resolution, meaning it cannot separate spectral details as finely as larger telescopes can. Mauve was launched on November 28, 2025, into a 510 km Sun-synchronous orbit, a path that lets it pass over the same part of Earth at about the same local solar time each day. The mission is designed to observe many kinds of stars in our galaxy in ultraviolet and visible light, helping fill important gaps in space-based ultraviolet data. The science team has already defined the main research themes, observing plans, and target objects for the first year of operations. So far, 10 science themes have been developed, including both long-term monitoring of objects over time and shorter snapshot observations. This paper describes those science themes and the kinds of discoveries Mauve aims to make during its first year in space.
Figure 2.
Candidate target list coloured by spectral type across the Mauve field of regard.