News
Select Press Releases
18 October 2019 – Blue Skies Space awards contract to Airbus for advanced spectroscopy space mission
Blue Skies Space Ltd announces an industrial design study for the industrial design and component evaluation of the Twinkle Space Mission, with co-funding from the European Space Agency’s Business Applications Programme. The Twinkle satellite will provide simultaneous visible and infrared spectroscopic observational data, enabling researchers worldwide to study the composition of exoplanet atmospheres, stars and solar system bodies.
Blue Skies Space Ltd has awarded the study to Airbus who will investigate an industrial solution for the satellite building on the initial feasibility study of the Twinkle mission with the contribution of ABB Inc. through its optical expertise on payload design. Read more…
30 July 2018 – Startup Funding Club Invests £570k into Blue Skies Space Ltd.
Startup Funding Club (SFC) has invested in Blue Skies Space Ltd, a pioneering UK company providing access to space science data from low-cost space missions.
Blue Skies Space is taking a private-sector approach to a traditionally government driven area and will provide a commercial service worldwide. The deal marks the 100th investment made by a fund operated by SFC since the launch of the organisation’s first Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme Fund in 2014.
The round of £570,000 has been co-invested by the SFC Angel Fund and the tech-focused London Co-Investment Fund (LCIF) as well as a group of Angel Investors. LCIF, which is delivered by Funding London was establish by the London Economic Action plan Partnership, which contributed £25 million to the fund, and is supported by the Mayor of London. Read more…
16 June 2016 – Twinkle exoplanet mission completes design milestone
Twinkle, an independent mission to unravel the story of planets in our galaxy, has completed a key preliminary design milestone. The results of the payload study demonstrate that Twinkle’s instruments will be able to achieve the mission’s science objectives. Twinkle’s two spectrometers will analyse light transmitted through, and emitted or reflected by, the atmospheres of exoplanets in order to give radical insights into worlds orbiting distant stars. Read more…
6 February 2015 – Twinkle on fast-track mission to unveil exoplanet atmospheres
In the News
2017 – Selected Twinkle news coverage
19 August 2017 – BuzzFeed News
Meet The British Scientists Looking For Earth 2.0
2 August 2017 – The Independent
Saturn’s moon Titan may harbour simple life forms – and reveal how organisms first formed on Earth
March 2017 – ROOM Space Journal
Twinkle – a mission to unravel the story of planets in our galaxy
2016 – Selected Twinkle news coverage
9 August 2016 – The Smithsonian Magazine
Opening the Space Race to the Entire World
24 June 2016 – The Guardian
Twinkle will cast a weather eye on far-flung planets
17 June 2016 – PhysOrg
Twinkle exoplanet mission completes design milestone
2015 – Selected Twinkle news coverage
25 August 2015 – Discovery News
Tiny Space Telescope to Aim at ‘Super-Earth’ Atmospheres
24 July – The Conversation
UK satellite Twinkle will reveal atmospheres of distant exoplanets
15 March 2015 – Chemical and Engineering News
UK’s Twinkle Mission Set To Explore Exoplanets
6 February 2015 – Sky at Night Magazine
Twinkle, twinkle, little satellite
6 February 2015 – SEN
UK’s fast-track space mission to study exoplanet atmospheres
26 January – New Scientist
Twinkle telescope to check out exoplanet climate
Blog
May 2019
Overview of Science Cases with Twinkle
Key science cases with Twinkle explored
April 2018
March 2018
ORBYTS 2018 students visit UCL
Secondary school scientists attend meet-up.
Congratulations to ARIEL
The start of a golden era for exoplanet research
January 2018
Doing “Home-work” with Twinkle – studying objects in our own Solar System
Billy Edwards updates us on what Twinkle can tell us about our own Solar System.
ORBYTS Week 3 – Creating code to analyse transits
Guest blog by ORBYTS student, Julia Osiak.