Chennai, Dec 3 (UNI) The T-25 and a half hour countdown for tomorrow's launch of European Space Agency's (ESA) two satellites as part of Proba-3 mission onboard ISRO's reliable and workhorse launch vehicle PSLV-C59 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, SHAR Range, Sriharikota on December four, began at 1444 hrs on Tuesday.
The launch of Proba-3, the world's first precision formation flying mission that will study the solar corona, the Sun's outermost layer, will take place from the First Launch Pad in the spaceport of Sriharikota at 1608 hrs on Wednesday evening.
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) sources said Proba-3 will be carrying two satellites,
the 340 kg Coronagraph Spacecraft (CSC) and 240 kg Occulter Spacecraft (OSC).
ISRO will be using its XL version of PSLV for the mission and the two spacecrafts will be injected
into a highly elliptical orbit at an apogee of 60,530 km and a perigee of 600 km with an inclination
of 59 degrees in a stacked configuration.
PSLV-C59 is a 44.5 m tall four-stage vehicle and has a lift off mass of 320 tonnes.
This will the 26th flight of XL version and 61st flight of PSLV.
During the countdown, propellant filling operations--solid and liquid propellants--will be carried
out in the four-stage vehicle.
After a flight duration of 25 minutes and after ignition and separation of all the four stages, the
Proba-3 spacecrafts will be injected into a highly elliptical orbit.
This will be a dedicated commercial mission of New Space India Limited (NSIL), the commercial
arm of ISRO.
"Proba-3 is an In-Orbit Demonstration (IOD) mission of the European Space Agency. The mission goal is to demonstrate precise formation flying. It consists of 2 spacecrafts viz. the Coronagraph
Spacecraft (CSC) and the Occulter Spacecraft (OSC) and it will be launched together in a stacked configuration", ISRO said on Monday.
Proba-3 is a technology demonstration mission of ESA and the world’s first precision formation-
flying mission.
A pair of satellites will fly together, maintaining a fixed configuration as if they were a single large
rigid structure in space, to prove innovative formation flying and rendezvous technologies.
The objective of this mission is Proba-3 will function as an orbital laboratory, demonstrating acquisition, rendezvous, proximity operations and formation flying, while validating innovative metrology sensors and control algorithms, opening up novel methods of mission control.
The two satellites will adopt a fixed configuration in space, 150m apart while lined up with the
Sun so that OSC blocks out the brilliant solar disk for the CSC.
This will open up continuous views of the Sun’s faint corona, or surrounding atmosphere, for
scientific observation.
The orbital period will be 19.7 hours and the Mission antenna will be at Santa Maria des Azores,
and ground station at Redu, Belgium.
Flying together, a pair of spacecraft will form an artificial solar eclipse in space, casting a
precisely-controlled shadow from one platform to the other to open up sustained views of
the Sun's faint surrounding corona.
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