Analysis: A new space telescope with Irish scientific involvement goes into operation this week on a mission to study how stars behave
Later this month, the small but ground-breaking Mauve space telescope, developed by the UK-based company Blue Skies Space, will lift off from California aboard SpaceX's Falcon 9 Transporter-15 — and Ireland has a ticket for the journey. With funding from Research Ireland, Maynooth University became a member of the Mauve Science Programme in August 2025. A team of astrophysicists from the Department of Physics will use Mauve to study how stars and planets form, opening an exciting new chapter in Ireland’s contribution to cutting-edge space exploration.
Mauve is an ultraviolet (UV) space telescope with a mission to study stars. During its three years in orbit, Mauve will take on a unique scientific challenge, one that larger leading space telescope like the James Webb Space Telescope were not built for. That is the continuous monitoring of how stars behave.
Mauve’s importance lies not only in its scientific specialisation of stellar UV monitoring, but also its low-cost, rapid-deployment satellite design, commercial access model and collaborative approach to doing science. Together, these elements make it a trailblazer in the emerging era of commercial space science, changing how space telescopes can be imagined, funded and used by scientists across the globe.
From Blue Skies Space, putting together the Mauve satellit and telescope
Mauve is a small satellite (around 18.6 kg, the size of a small suitcase) and is equipped with a 13 cm telescope. Its compact design, based on CubeSat technology, dramatically lowers launch and operational costs compared to large telescopes. It also enables a fast turnaround: Mauve was built in less than three years compared to decades for large space telescopes.
Unlike traditional space missions financed and operated by national space agencies, Mauve follows a commercial model. Researchers and institutions can gain access to the telescope’s observing time or data through a subscription. Astronomers have to apply for highly competitive time on other telescopes and hope they get the time they need, with the whole process from application to the arrival of the data often taking upwards of a year. This approach opens up access to space-based data, reducing reliance on highly competitive national agency allocations and allowing for more flexibility in how observations are planned and much quicker access to data.
Though Mauve-style telescopes cannot match the power of flagship missions like JWST, they offer a very valuable and cost-effective way to explore the universe. By continuously monitoring stars in our galaxy, Mauve will study a range of astrophysical phenomena from the habitability of exoplanets - planets outside our own Solar System - to how stars form.
From RTÉ Radio 1's 3 O'Clock Show, Kevin Nolan from TU Dublin on the latest space developments
Astronomers at Maynooth University plan to use Mauve to study a particular class of forming stars called Herbig Ae/Be stars. These stars will eventually start to fuse hydrogen in their cores and become what astronomers call a main sequence star. Our Sun is a main sequence star but Herbig Ae/Be stars will be more massive than the Sun with some being 10 times more massive than the Sun.
While these types of young stars have been observed by astronomers for many decades, it is not yet clear if they form in the same way as our Sun did or if they form planets in the same way as sun-like stars do. By observing a large sample of Herbig Ae/Be stars every day for up to three months, the group will build light-curves of the stars and get a picture of how their brightness changes. Variability is common in young stars and so these light curves will be compared to those of less massive stars to look for clues as to how the Herbig Ae/Be stars form and for evidence that there are orbiting planets.
The Mauve Science Team includes scientists from Boston University, the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Italy's Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica and Western University, as well as from Maynooth. Mauve’s development involved a consortium of academic, industrial, and SME partners across Europe, funded partly through the EU Horizon Europe programs and private investment. This collaborative funding and management model represents a new way of conducting space science, blending science with commercial agility.
Follow RTÉ Brainstorm on WhatsApp and Instagram for more stories and updates
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
