Proba-3 was launched on December 5, 2024 aboard a PSLV-XL rocket from India.
Following launch, the Proba-3 spacecraft spent early 2025 executing separation maneuvers and testing safe-mode holds.
One satellite on Proba-3 carries the ASPIICS coronagraph, while the other functions as an occulting disc to block the solar disc and reveal the faint corona.
Proba-3 was launched in December 2024 and achieved the first precise formation flight in space and the first artificial solar eclipse in orbit.
Proba-3 enables researchers to investigate how the solar wind gains speed and how coronal mass ejections are initiated and structured close to the Sun.
Proba-3 is designed to create a total solar eclipse on demand by flying its two spacecraft in a controlled formation.
Proba-3 can reliably deliver continuous imagery of the inner corona, an area previously difficult for space-based instruments to cover.
The two Proba-3 spacecraft were separated in orbit six weeks post-launch, and they executed their first autonomous formation flight in March 2025.
The SWAP extreme-ultraviolet telescope on Proba-2 captured the solar disc and low corona, while the LASCO C2 coronagraph on SOHO captured the outer corona, and Proba-3's ASPIICS coronagraph provided detailed imagery of the inner corona.
Proba-3 achieved its technical goal of aligning the two spacecraft in orbit with millimetre-level accuracy and maintaining their positions without ground intervention.
Proba-3 has already accumulated about 250 hours of observation time over approximately 50 orbits.
Proba-3 can create its artificial eclipse once every 19 hours and 40 minutes, lasting up to 6 hours, while natural total solar eclipses occur once or twice a year and last only a few minutes.
The volume of data from Proba-3 is equivalent to about 6000 total eclipse campaigns on Earth.
Redwire has collaborated with the Spanish firm Sener on the development of the European pioneering mission Proba-3.
PSLV has launched missions for other space agencies, including the Proba-3 Sun-studying craft for ESA last year.
Proba-3 will operate in a highly elliptical 600 x 60,000-kilometer orbit with a 20-hour orbital period.
India launched the Proba-3 European technology demonstration mission using a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).
Proba-3 consists of two spacecraft designed for precise formation flying in Earth orbit.
The European Space Agency launched the Proba-3 mission from India.
The Proba-3 mission has a total mass of 550 kg and is led by the European Space Agency (ESA).