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Europe says farewell to eclipse-making Proba-3

Written by  Thursday, 31 October 2024 11:30
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Proba-3 Coronagraph being prepared for shipping

ESA’s solar eclipse-making Proba-3 mission is about to leave for its launch site in India. The mission’s two spacecraft – which will manoeuvre precisely in Earth orbit so that one casts a shadow onto the other – have departed the facilities of Redwire Space in Kruibeke, Belgium. The pair will be flown to the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, near Chennai, for the launch campaign to begin. 

The two Proba-3 satellites line up with the Sun to form an eclipse
The two Proba-3 satellites line up with the Sun to form an eclipse

Proba-3’s main corona-observing ASPIICS (Association of Spacecraft for Polarimetric and Imaging Investigation of the Corona of the Sun) instrument, hosted on the Coronagraph spacecraft, will be overseen by the Royal Observatory of Belgium.

The mission’s Occulter spacecraft, fitted with a 1.4-m disk, is tasked with blocking out of the Sun for the Coronagraph spacecraft during active formation flying. It carries its own instrument on the Sunward side, DARA (Davos Absolute Radiometer) to measure the Sun’s total energy output for climate studies, developed by the Physical Meteorological Observatory. PMOD, in Davos, Switzerland.


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