Our Proba-3 mission recently pulled off its first-ever autonomous formation flight — aligning with the Sun and holding position for hours, all on its own.
This is precision. This is the future. And it’s just the beginning.
📹 European Space Agency (ESA)
#ESA #Space #Proba3
Proba-3 lifted off on its PSLV-XL rocket from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India, on Thursday, 5 December, at 11:34 CET (10:34 GMT, 16:04 local time). The mission was launched using this Indian launcher because it needed to be placed in a highly elliptical orbit extending more than 60 500 km from the ground.
After integration and testing was completed at Redwire Space in Belgium, Proba-3 was transported to India to be prepared for launch.
The latest member of ESA’s family of in-orbit demonstration missions, Proba-3 is in fact two spacecraft being launched together, which will separate in orbit to begin performing precise formation flying, precise to a single millimetre, about the thickness of an average fingernail. To prove their performance, Proba-3 has been devoted to an ambitious scientific goal. The pair will line up precisely with the Sun 150 m apart so that one casts a precisely controlled shadow onto the other.
By blocking out the fiery disc of the Sun, Proba-3’s ‘Occulter’ spacecraft will mimic a terrestrial total solar eclipse, to open up views of the Sun’s faint surrounding atmosphere, or ‘corona’, which is a million times fainter than its parent star. Proba-3’s second ‘Coronagraph’ spacecraft hosts the optical instrument that will observe the solar corona.
If Proba-3’s initial commissioning phase goes to plan then the spacecraft pair will be separated early in the new year to begin their individual check-outs. The operational phase of the mission, including the first observations of the corona through active formation flying, should begin in about four months.
Proba-3 was led for ESA by Sener in Spain, overseeing a consortium of 14 ESA Member States and Canada including Airbus Defence and Space in Spain manufacturing the spacecraft and Redwire Space in Belgium responsible for the spacecraft avionics, assembly and operations. CSL in Belgium produced Proba-3’s ASPIICS coronagraph Spacebel in Belgium developed the onboard and ground segment software with GMV responsible for the formation flying system and flight dynamics.
Credits: ESA/ISRO – NSIL
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#ESA #Proba-3 #Rocket
ESA’s Proba-3 mission lifted off on its PSLV-XL rocket from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India, on Thursday, 5 December, at 11:34 CET (10:34 GMT, 16:04 local time).
📸 ISRO – NSIL
#ESA #Proba-3#Rocket
ESA’s Proba-3 mission lifted off on its PSLV-XL rocket from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India, on Thursday, 5 December, at 11:34 CET (10:34 GMT, 16:04 local time).
Credits: ISRO – NSIL
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We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world. Check out https://www.esa.int/ to get up to speed on everything space related.
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Meet Esther, our System Engineer currently working on the Proba-3 mission.
Proba-3 is scheduled to liftoff on Wednesday, 4 December, at 11:38 CET from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in India, Proba-3 will use two satellites to create the perfect conditions for observing the Sun’s corona.
One satellite features a telescope, kept in the centre of the shadow cast by the other satellite around 150 m away, thanks to an occulter disc. Maintaining the correct position in the shadow requires a precise formation flying capability, down to a single millimetre of precision.
📹 ESA – European Space Agency
📸 ESA
#ESA #Proba-3 #DayInTheLife
The double-satellite Proba-3 is the most ambitious member yet of ESA’s Proba family of experimental missions. Two spacecraft will fly together as one, maintaining precise formation down to a single millimetre. One will block out the fiery disc of the Sun for the other, to enable prolonged observations of the Sun’s surrounding atmosphere, or ‘corona’, the source of the solar wind and space weather. Usually, the corona can only be glimpsed for a few minutes during terrestrial total solar eclipses.
Proba-3 aims to reproduce such eclipses for up to six hours at a time, in a highly elliptical orbit taking it more than 60 000 km from Earth. The two spacecraft are being launched together by India’s PSLV-XL launcher from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre.
📹 ESA – European Space Agency
📸 SOHO (ESA & NASA)
#ESA #Proba-3 #SolarEclipse
Proba-3 is ESA’s – and the world’s – first precision formation flying mission. A pair of satellites will fly together relative to the Sun so that one casts a precisely-controlled shadow onto the other, to create a prolonged solar eclipse in orbit. In the process the mission will open up the Sun’s faint surrounding coronal atmosphere for sustained study. Normally this corona is rendered invisible by the brilliant face of the Sun, like a firefly next to a bonfire.
Due for launch together this autumn, the two Proba-3 satellites will fly 144-m apart for up to six hours at a time to create these eclipses. Beside its scientific interest, this experiment will be a perfect method to demonstrate the precise positioning of the two platforms. It will be enabled using a novel combination of guidance technologies. In this video the Proba-3 team details the mission concept.
Find out more here: https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Space_Engineering_Technology/Proba_Missions/About_Proba-3
Credits: ESA – European Space Agency
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During a solar eclipse the Earth is plunged into darkness and the Sun’s ghostly atmosphere becomes visible. Scientists travel the globe to experience total solar eclipses, which occur for just a few minutes at a time every 18 months or so. But what exactly causes solar eclipses, and how do scientists try to make their own, including with ESA’s new Proba-3 mission?
Timestaps of the video:
00:00 – 00:32 – Intro
00:33 – 01:45 – How do solar eclipses happen?
01:46 – 02:45 – How do we know anything about the solar corona given that eclipses occur so rarely?
02:46 – 04:00 – How can we create a perfect artificial solar eclipse in space?
Credits: ESA – European Space Agency
Videos: ESA, NASA, Solar Orbiter/EUI (ESA/NASA), SOHO/LASCO (ESA/NASA), ESA-Magic Fennec, Getty Images
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#ESA #SolarEclipse #Proba-3
Dancing is probably the oldest human artform – and now ESA’s Proba-3 precision formation-flying mission intends to extend the art of dance to space.
Like dancers, a pair of minisatellites will move around each other, their relative positions maintained to millimetre-scale precision, as if they were both parts of one giant spacecraft.
Their mission is to cast a shadow from one minisatellite onto another, in order to form an artificial total solar eclipse in space – then study the fine details of the Sun’s wispy atmosphere, the solar corona.
Franco Ongaro, ESA Director of Technical and Quality Management; Frederic Teston, Head of System and Cost Engineering; Andrea Santovincenzo, ESA engineer and the project’s manager Agnes Mestreau-Garreau, explain how to go about teaching a space mission to dance.