1. Proba-3 is ESA’s – and the world’s – first precision formation flying mission.
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2. Proba stands for PRoject for OnBoard Autonomy
The Proba-3 mission will open up space for smaller ESA Member States and small- and medium-sized businesses.
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3. Launch information Launch date—late 2020
Launch—from Kourou in French Guiana
Launch vehicle—Vega rocket
High Earth orbit, 19.7 hours orbital period, km apogee, 600 km perigee
Mission duration—two years
Operated by—ESA
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4. The primary mission of PROBA-3 is solar coronagraphy by using the telescope on the larger of the two satellites to view the Sun's corona while the other spacecraft is maneuvered to accurately occult the disc of the Sun.
It will create artificial solar eclipses to block out the direct light of the Sun.
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5. The Sun is a million times brighter than its surrounding corona, so eclipsing it is essential for coronal studies. This giant coronagraph system will enrich the solar science with unprecedented study of the close corona. Previous Sun-observing missions such as SOHO incorporate ‘internal’ coronagraphs to study the corona. But their effectiveness is limited by a phenomenon called diffraction, where stray light overspills the edge of the occulting disk.
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9. https://directory. eoportal
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.
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10. The paired Proba-3 satellites will have a highly elliptical orbit with an apogee (or top of orbit) of 60,524 km and perigee of 800 km.
Coronagraph observation based on forming an artificial eclipse between the two satellites as well as active formation flying experiments taking place towards apogee, with passive formation flying taking place as the satellites circle closer to Earth.
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11. The mission will demonstrate formation flying in the context of a large-scale science experiment. The paired satellites will together form a 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.
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12. The two spacecraft will be controlled in space as if they were two parts of a rigid structure (e.g. telescope optics and detector). This virtual rigid structure will be commanded to rotate and point to any desired direction. It will also be possible to set the relative distance of the two spacecraft from 25 to 250 m (i.e. change the focal length).
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