It has been a busy year for the European Space Agency’s Proba-3 mission. The satellite duo has already created more than 50 artificial solar eclipses in orbit since the mission operations began less than a year ago. The resulting data confirm Proba-3's ability to provide the missing puzzle piece in our observations of the Sun's enigmatic atmosphere – the corona.
One year ago, on 5 December 2024, the two Proba-3 spacecraft launched to orbit, where they were carefully separated six weeks later. In March this year, the satellite duo performed its first autonomous formation flight.
Only a month later, the mission has achieved its ambitious goal – for the first time, two spacecraft in orbit aligned in formation with millimetre precision and maintained their relative position for several hours without any control from the ground.
Demonstrating the degree of precision achieved, the two spacecraft that make up the Proba-3 mission – the Coronagraph and the Occulter – use their formation flying time to create artificial solar eclipses in orbit.
It has been a busy year for the European Space Agency’s Proba-3 mission. The satellite duo has already created more than 50 artificial solar eclipses in orbit since the mission operations began less than a year ago. The resulting data confirm Proba-3's ability to provide the missing puzzle piece in our observations of the Sun's enigmatic atmosphere – the corona.
One year ago, on 5 December 2024, the two Proba-3 spacecraft launched to orbit, where they were carefully separated six weeks later. In March this year, the satellite duo performed its first autonomous formation flight.
Only a month later, the mission has achieved its ambitious goal – for the first time, two spacecraft in orbit aligned in formation with millimetre precision and maintained their relative position for several hours without any control from the ground.
Demonstrating the degree of precision achieved, the two spacecraft that make up the Proba-3 mission – the Coronagraph and the Occulter – use their formation flying time to create artificial solar eclipses in orbit.
“Our artificial eclipse images are comparable with those taken during a natural eclipse,” adds Andrei. “The difference is that we can create our eclipse once every orbit, which takes 19 hours and 40 minutes, while total solar eclipses only occur naturally around once, very rarely twice a year. On top of that, natural total eclipses only last a few minutes, while Proba-3 can hold its artificial eclipse for up to 6 hours.”
Joe Zender, Proba-3 project scientist, adds: “So far, the mission’s observation time has amounted to about 250 hours across 50 orbits. This means these past few months alone deliver the same amount of data we could get from 6000 total eclipse campaigns on Earth.”
It has been a busy year for the European Space Agency’s Proba-3 mission. The satellite duo has already created more than 50 artificial solar eclipses in orbit since the mission operations began less than a year ago. The resulting data confirm Proba-3's ability to provide the missing puzzle piece in our observations of the Sun's enigmatic atmosphere – the corona.
One year ago, on 5 December 2024, the two Proba-3 spacecraft launched to orbit, where they were carefully separated six weeks later. In March this year, the satellite duo performed its first autonomous formation flight.
Only a month later, the mission has achieved its ambitious goal – for the first time, two spacecraft in orbit aligned in formation with millimetre precision and maintained their relative position for several hours without any control from the ground.
Demonstrating the degree of precision achieved, the two spacecraft that make up the Proba-3 mission – the Coronagraph and the Occulter – use their formation flying time to create artificial solar eclipses in orbit.
It has been a busy year for the European Space Agency’s Proba-3 mission. The satellite duo has already created more than 50 artificial solar eclipses in orbit since the mission operations began less than a year ago. The resulting data confirm Proba-3's ability to provide the missing puzzle piece in our observations of the Sun's enigmatic atmosphere – the corona.
One year ago, on 5 December 2024, the two Proba-3 spacecraft launched to orbit, where they were carefully separated six weeks later. In March this year, the satellite duo performed its first autonomous formation flight.
Only a month later, the mission has achieved its ambitious goal – for the first time, two spacecraft in orbit aligned in formation with millimetre precision and maintained their relative position for several hours without any control from the ground.
Demonstrating the degree of precision achieved, the two spacecraft that make up the Proba-3 mission – the Coronagraph and the Occulter – use their formation flying time to create artificial solar eclipses in orbit.
“Our artificial eclipse images are comparable with those taken during a natural eclipse,” adds Andrei. “The difference is that we can create our eclipse once every orbit, which takes 19 hours and 40 minutes, while total solar eclipses only occur naturally around once, very rarely twice a year. On top of that, natural total eclipses only last a few minutes, while Proba-3 can hold its artificial eclipse for up to 6 hours.”
Joe Zender, Proba-3 project scientist, adds: “So far, the mission’s observation time has amounted to about 250 hours across 50 orbits. This means these past few months alone deliver the same amount of data we could get from 6000 total eclipse campaigns on Earth.”
It has been a busy year for the European Space Agency’s Proba-3 mission. The satellite duo has already created more than 50 artificial solar eclipses in orbit since the mission operations began less than a year ago. The resulting data confirm Proba-3's ability to provide the missing puzzle piece in our observations of the Sun's enigmatic atmosphere – the corona.
One year ago, on 5 December 2024, the two Proba-3 spacecraft launched to orbit, where they were carefully separated six weeks later. In March this year, the satellite duo performed its first autonomous formation flight.
Only a month later, the mission has achieved its ambitious goal – for the first time, two spacecraft in orbit aligned in formation with millimetre precision and maintained their relative position for several hours without any control from the ground.
Demonstrating the degree of precision achieved, the two spacecraft that make up the Proba-3 mission – the Coronagraph and the Occulter – use their formation flying time to create artificial solar eclipses in orbit.
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