The European Space Agency (ESA) is set to launch its Proba-3 mission, aimed at creating artificial solar eclipses using two satellites flying in precise formation. This mission, which will be launched on Wednesday from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in India, marks ESA’s first attempt at formation flying, where the satellites will maintain a separation of just one millimeter, roughly the width of a human fingernail.
Over the course of a four-month journey, the two satellites will orbit Earth in an elliptical path, ranging from 370 miles to over 59,000 kilometers in altitude. The primary goal of the mission is to allow one satellite to block the sun’s light, casting a controlled shadow on the second satellite. This will provide a continuous view of the sun’s corona, the outermost part of its atmosphere, allowing scientists to study it in unprecedented detail.
Unlike natural solar eclipses, which are brief and dependent on weather conditions, Proba-3 will create 50 artificial eclipses each year, with each one lasting six hours. The lead satellite will carry a 1.4-meter-wide disc to block sunlight, forming a 150-meter-long coronagraph, enabling detailed observations of the sun’s corona, which can reach temperatures exceeding a million degrees Celsius. These observations will help improve understanding of solar weather and phenomena like solar storms and coronal mass ejections that can disrupt space-based technologies and communications.
The mission will also serve as a testbed for advanced space technologies, including satellite servicing and space debris removal, with potential benefits for future space missions. By using optical sensors, LEDs, and precision lasers, the satellites will maintain their formation, orbiting the Earth every 19.7 hours over two years. This formation-flying technology could open new possibilities for collaborative space-based observatories, enabling larger instruments for scientific research in fields such as climate change, planetary exploration, and the study of distant stars.
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