DESCRIPTION

Weighing approximately 60 kg, and powered by solar panels, the MOST microsatellite bus houses a telescope with the unique ability to measure minute changes in the brightness of stars.

MOST's outstanding flight heritage has surpassed all expectations for the microsatellite’s years in orbit without indication of deterioration.

BENEFITS

• MSCI’s use of commercial-grade components in our standard Multi Mission Microsatellite Bus architecture capitalizes on the technology developed for the MOST microsatellite, enabling MSCI to build affordable and flexible microsatellites for civil and military applications.

• Leveraging our flight heritage in the civil and military sectors, MSCI can now design and build cost-effective microsatellites for commercial applications, providing a new market with access to traditionally cost-prohibitive services, thus enabling new customers to pass on value-adds and savings to their customers.

• MSCI’s solid track record for microsatellite operations and attitude control makes us the premier choice for customers who wish to purchase their own microsatellites, but who prefer to put operations into the hands of experts.

CAPABILITIES

• MSCI’s world-leading precision attitude control keeps the MOST telescope pointing within 1 arcsecond of its desired target 99% of the time, a vastly significant improvement over previous microsatellite-pointing capabilities

• MSCI’s outstanding cadre of aerospace engineers continue to successfully operate MOST throughout its mission

• MSCI’s ground control engineers send MOST instructions for data gathering via three S-band stations with 2.5-m dishes, located in Toronto, Vancouver and Vienna, enabling data downloads throughout the day

MISSION

Dr. Jaymie Matthews, leading scientist for the MOST mission, and astrophysics professor at the University of British Columbia, explains that variations in star brightness suggests the existence of planets, such as planet HD 209458b.

“Hugging so surprisingly close to its parent star, HD 209458b could never support life as we know it . . . But does it have any Earth-like neighbours at a more comfortable distance? That's a question that no other observatory -- on Earth or in space -- can tackle at the moment, except MOST.”

Click here for Dr. Jaymie Matthews’s Top Ten List of MOST's greatest technological, scientific and aerospace breakthroughs.

Click here for more information about the mission partners