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Proba-3 is ESA’s – and the world’s – first precision formation flying mission. A pair of satellites will fly together maintaining a fixed configuration as a ‘large rigid structure’ in space to prove formation flying technologies and rendezvous experiments.
The mission will demonstrate formation flying in the context of a large-scale science experiment. The two satellites will together form an approximately 150-m long solar coronagraph to study the Sun’s faint corona closer to the solar rim than has ever before been achieved. Beside its scientific interest, the experiment will be a perfect instrument to measure the achievement of the precise positioning of the two spacecraft. It will be enabled using a wide variety of new technologies.
Proba-3 facts and figures | |
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Launch date: | 2024 |
Mass: | Coronagraph spacecraft 340 kg; Occulter spacecraft 200 kg |
Orbit: | High Earth orbit, 19.7 hours orbital period, 60 530 km apogee, 600 km perigee |
Instrument: | External coronagraph |
Ground station: | Mission antenna will be at Santa Maria des Azores, and ground station at Redu, Belgium |
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