Every time a total solar eclipse occurs, approximately every two years, thousands of scientists take the opportunity to study the solar corona. But now an innovative mission of the European Space Agency (ESA)will search create artificial solar eclipses and study the Sun’s corona in detail, the outermost atmosphere of our star.
The mission Proba-3which will take off tomorrow from India, consists of two satellites that will work in a coordinated and precise manner with the aim of offering continuous observations of this faint solar layer, which could significantly expand knowledge about the Sun and its impact on Earth.
The two Proba-3 satellites, one equipped with a “coronograph” to capture high-quality images of the solar corona and the other designed as “concealer”will fly in formation with millimeter precision while orbiting the Earth at speeds ranging from 1 to 10 kilometers per second.
According to those responsible for the mission, This technical feat represents a milestone for space engineering and astronomy. The launch is scheduled for today, at 11:45 GMT (8:45 Argentine time), from the Satish Dhawan Space Centernear Chennai, India.
In recent days, the satellites have successfully passed preliminary tests and have been docked with the PSLV-XL launcher of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), which has the ability to take them up to 60,000 kilometers away from Earth before placing them just 600 kilometers from our planet.
“It is a great challenge because we need control the flight path very well of the two spaceships. “This is an experiment in space to demonstrate a new concept, a new technology,” he said. Damien Galanodirector of the Proba project at ESA.
The Proba-3 mission, with a budget of approximately 200 million euros, is led by the Spanish company Sener, and has the participation of some forty companies from sixteen countries, including large multinationals such as Airbus Defense and Space, GMV, Deimos, HV Sistemas, Inventia and Thales Alenia Space.
The main Proba-3’s goal is to investigate the solar corona, which is the source of many important solar phenomenaincluding coronal mass ejections, which release large amounts of plasma, charged particles and magnetic fields into space.
These ejecta can affect Earth’s magnetosphere, causing geomagnetic storms that can disrupt communications, navigation systems, satellites, and even power grids. However, they are also responsible for phenomena such as the northern lights, which are seen as the “positive” side of these solar expulsions. According to the ESA scientist, Anik de Groff, better understand the solar corona dynamics is crucial to improving space weather predictions.
In this context, the Proba-3 mission represents a significant advance. The satellites will fly in precise formation over a period of approximately one and a half yearsduring which up to 1,500 hours of artificial solar eclipses will be simulated.
To achieve this, one of the satellites, the “occulter,” will place its shadow between the Sun and the “coronograph” satellite, blocking the Sun’s light and allowing the instrument on the other spacecraft to capture detailed images of the corona. This ability to create eclipses on demand is a major advance in solar observation, which until now was only achieved during natural eclipses.
The two satellites will be designed to operate completely autonomously, without the intervention of operators on Earth. Each satellite will be able to calculate and adjust its position and trajectory relative to the other with a precision of just one millimeter, which is equivalent to the thickness of a human fingernail.
This ability to fly autonomously in precise formation is not only essential for the Sun observation mission, but also represents a major step toward the development of more complex future space infrastructures, such as large-scale telescopes operating with separate, distributed components. in several ships.
According to Dietmar Pilz, ESA chief technology officer, formation flights could enable assembly of large telescopes and other space instruments from several satellites working together. “If we could have several satellites close to each other in an absolutely precise formation, we could assemble larger instruments composed of several satellites,” Pilz said.
Proba-3 is ESA’s third mission in the series PROBA (PRoject for On-Board Autonomy), which aims to demonstrate new advanced very high precision technologies in orbit. This mission could be key to the development of future low-cost space missions that use formation flight technologies to conduct scientific observations and other space studies. In factformation flight of satellites could facilitate the creation of large space instruments assembled by several satellites working collaboratively.
“The satellites will orbit the Earth for approximately a year and a half, a time during which they will be able to simulate about 1,500 hours of solar eclipses, and at the end of the mission the two spacecraft will disintegrate upon re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere,” explained the engineer. ESA system Esther Bastida, who assured that in this way and in line with the policy of the European Special Agency, no space debris will be generated.
This decision is in line with ESA’s policy of minimizing environmental impact and avoiding the accumulation of waste in space. The engineering behind Proba-3, which has involved various international institutions and companiesis an example of the global collaboration that is transforming space research.
This mission not only represents a major advance in the understanding of the Sun and its influence on Earth, but also marks a milestone in space engineering. By demonstrating how two satellites can fly in precise formation to create artificial solar eclipses, Proba-3 opens new doors for the future of astronomical research and collaborative space missions.
