Proba-3 is an extremely technically and scientifically ambitious mission. Through exquisite, millimetre-scale, formation flying, its dual satellites will accomplish what was previously a space mission impossible: one platform will cast a precisely held shadow onto the other, in the process blocking out the fiery Sun to observe its ghostly surrounding atmosphere on a prolonged basis.

The last in a series of five ‘System Validation Tests’ for the mission involved scientists at the Royal Observatory of Belgium in Brussels sending payload operation requests to the mission’s control centre at ESA ESEC, the European Space Security and Education Centre, across the country at Redu.