Last night, 14 January, at 23:00 GMT (15 January 00:00 CET), the pair successfully separated from each other while flying 60,000 km above Earth at a speed of 1 km per second.

Proba-3 mission manager Damien Galano describes the critical milestone: “The separation relied on a well-known technology, routinely used when a spacecraft separates from its launcher. The two Proba-3 spacecraft were held together by a clamp-band, which is essentially a belt tightened around two metal rings, each attached to one spacecraft. Once the clamp was released, the two satellites started slowly drifting away from each other.”