- World
- Mar 11
ESA loses contact with Proba-3 Coronagraph spacecraft
• An anomaly onboard the Proba-3 mission’s Coronagraph spacecraft led to loss of contact between the spacecraft and ground control.
• The European Space Agency (ESA) said that the root cause of the anomaly is under investigation and mission teams are working hard to recover the situation.
• The anomaly triggered a chain reaction that led to the progressive loss of attitude (spacecraft orientation) and prevented the entry into safe mode.
• Because the spacecraft’s solar panel was no longer facing the Sun, the onboard battery started to discharge quickly.
• This caused the spacecraft to enter survival mode, when minimum electronics are active and data transmission to the ground is interrupted.
Proba-3 mission’s Indian connect
• Proba-3 is the world’s first precision formation flying mission.
• A pair of satellites fly together maintaining a fixed configuration as a ‘large rigid structure’ in space to prove formation flying technologies and rendezvous experiments.
• The mission consists of two satellites – the Coronagraph and the Occulter.
• The two satellites were brought to Sriharikota on November 4, 2024 for integration with ISRO's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).
• This mission marked India’s third launch for the European Union, following support for the Proba-1 and Proba-2 satellites.
• A month later, the mission 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.
• The satellite duo created more than 50 artificial solar eclipses in orbit since the mission operations began.
• 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.
• By capturing detailed images, Proba-3 is enabling scientists to advance their understanding of how the solar wind accelerates and how coronal mass ejections are triggered.
• By providing scientists with hours of science data per orbit, Proba-3 has accomplished a major feat in space-based solar and heliophysics research.