Source: IT
Subject: Science and Technology
Context: The European Space Agency (ESA) has lost contact with the Coronagraph spacecraft, one of the two satellites in the Proba-3 mission, after an anomaly caused a power failure and sent the craft into a silent survival mode.
About Proba-3 mission:
What it is?
- Proba-3 is the world’s first precision formation-flying mission, designed to study the Sun’s atmosphere with unprecedented clarity.
Launched By: European Space Agency (ESA) in December 2024 (aboard ISRO’s PSLV-C59).
Aim: To create an artificial solar eclipse in space to observe the Sun’s faint outer atmosphere—the corona—which is usually obscured by the intense light of the solar disk.
Key Features:
- Twin Spacecraft System: The mission consists of two independent satellites: the Coronagraph (carrying the camera) and the Occulter (the disk that blocks the Sun).
- Precision Formation Flying: The two satellites must maintain a fixed distance of approximately 150 meters with millimeter-level accuracy, acting as a single, giant virtual instrument.
- Artificial Eclipse: The Occulter blocks the Sun’s bright disk, casting a precise shadow onto the Coronagraph’s lens, mimicking a natural total solar eclipse.
- Autonomous Maneuvering: The satellites use advanced sensors (lasers and cameras) and cold-gas thrusters to coordinate their relative positions without constant ground control intervention.
- High-Cadence Data: Before the anomaly, the mission completed over 60 orbits, providing hours of continuous solar data that is impossible to capture during short-lived Earth-based eclipses.
Significance:
- By studying the corona, scientists can better understand Solar Winds and Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs), which can disrupt satellite communications and power grids on Earth.
- If successful, the formation-flying technology proven by Proba-3 will pave the way for future distributed space telescopes that are too large to be launched as a single piece.
