ESA’s Solar Eclipse-Making Proba-3 Mmssion Head to India
ESA’s Proba-3 mission, designed to create solar eclipses in space to study the Sun’s corona, has officially left European soil and is en route to its launch site in India. This dual-spacecraft mission departed from Redwire Space’s facility in Kruibeke, Belgium, to travel to the Satish Dhawan Space Centre near Chennai, where the final launch preparations are set to begin. The mission’s objective is to enable extended observation of the Sun’s corona—something only briefly visible during natural eclipses on Earth—by creating an artificial eclipse in space.
Breakthrough Formation Flying for Solar Study
Proba-3, a pioneering European Space Agency mission, is comprised of two spacecraft: the Occulter and the Coronagraph. These satellites will achieve formation flying with a precision that allows one satellite to cast a shadow on the other, creating the eclipse effect needed for corona observation. According to ESA Mission Manager Damien Galano, achieving this feat has required years of work to ensure the satellites can operate autonomously in formation with an accuracy of just one millimetre. The mission aims to offer unprecedented insights into solar phenomena by capturing detailed views of the Sun’s outer atmosphere.
Launch Details and Technical Challenges
The Proba-3 mission is scheduled to launch aboard India’s PSLV-XL rocket on 4 December. This launch will place the spacecraft pair into a highly elliptical orbit, ranging from 600 km to 60,000 km above Earth. Such an orbit is essential to allow the spacecraft’s formation flying to occur at altitudes where gravity’s pull is lessened, reducing fuel consumption. After an initial setback with air freight arrangements, where the spacecraft’s batteries had to be shipped separately, the mission is now back on schedule.
Global Collaboration and Advanced Technology
The Proba-3 mission has drawn on expertise from across 14 ESA Member States and Canada. Led by Spain’s Sener and supported by Airbus Defence and Space, the project has involved partners such as GMV and Spacebel, specialising in satellite navigation and software. Key instruments include the ASPIICS corona-imaging device from Belgium’s Royal Observatory and the DARA radiometer from Switzerland’s Physical Meteorological Observatory, designed to study solar energy output.
Pre-launch Simulations Underway
Final mission control operations will be conducted at ESA’s European Space Security and Education Centre in Redu, Belgium. Rigorous simulations and training exercises are currently underway to prepare for Proba-3’s deployment and ongoing operations in space, marking a significant milestone in space-based solar observation.
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Science
NASA’s TRACERS Mission Rescheduled for 2025 to Explore Solar Wind and Earth’s Magnetic Field
NASA has refocused its Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites (TRACERS) launch date to no earlier than 2025 to provide more time for the mission crew to prepare. This mission is about a pair of satellite studying about how the solar wind, interacts with and enters Earth’s magnetosphere, the region around Earth dominated by our planet’s magnetic field. Understanding and eventually forecasting how energy from our Sun enters our planet and may affect assets depending on space and the earth depends on research into this interaction.
Mission Objectives
According to NASA, the TRACERS spacecraft will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The twin spacecraft will travel around 341 miles above the planet through polar cusps, a short area of the earth’s magnetic field where solar wind is concentrated and funneled into our atmosphere.
In order to investigate the location and frequency of a phenomena known as magnetic reconnection near the outer borders of Earth’s magnetic field, the TRACERS mission will fly across the northern polar cusp many times each day.
The explosive energy transfer where two magnetic fields meet, particularly in the magnetopause region where the solar wind meets Earth’s magnetosphere is termed as magnetic reconnection . This event can cause solar wind particles to enter the atmosphere at high speeds, igniting the northern and southern lights but also creating hazardous conditions for astronauts and satellites, damaging ground infrastructure, communication signals, and aviation.
Mission oversight
David Miles is leading this TRACERS mission at the University of Iowa and it is managed by the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. The Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington oversees the project through the Heliophysics Explorers Program Office at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. As part of the agency’s VADR (Venture-class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare) contract, the launch service is being provided by NASA’s Launch Services Program, which is headquartered at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, in collaboration with NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.
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Related Stories
Expectations were high at the start of this month when a group of University of Cambridge astronomers reported they had found the “strongest evidence yet” of life on an exoplanet called K2-18b. Their assertions sprang from the detection of dimethyl sulphide (DMS), a gas linked to biological activity in the atmosphere of Earth. Conducted using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the finding suggested that the planet may be a watery, habitable world. But a detailed examination of the facts now begs grave doubt about the veracity of their bold assertions.
Skepticism Grows Over K2-18b Life Claims Amid New Analysis and Calls for More Data
As per a study posted on April 22, Jake Taylor of the University of Oxford applied a neutral statistical test that detected no clear molecular signatures in the JWST data, just a flat line. The studies suggest the signal is either noisy or too weak to provide strong conclusions. The first Cambridge-led study revealed a three-sigma DMS detection much below the five-sigma threshold usually required to prove major scientific discoveries. Critics also questioned the absence of supporting compounds like ethane and claimed the models employed may have exaggerated DMS levels.
Astrobiologists Eddie Schwieterman and Michaela Musilova note that current evidence doesn’t meet strict criteria for proving life; thus, there is a need for multiple independent teams to analyse the same dataset.
Further complicating matters, new research indicates K2-18b may orbit too close to its star to retain liquid water, possibly excluding it from the habitable zone. Adding to the scepticism, DMS was recently detected on a cold comet, suggesting that such molecules can exist without life. Lead author of the original research, Madhusudhan, has supported the findings but discounted Taylor’s test as too simple and “irrelevant” for their assertions.
Most scientists agree that confirmation or denial of DMS existence in K2-18b’s atmosphere depends on additional solid, peer-reviewed research. The argument is still in progress, an ongoing narrative illustrating how science develops not by certainty but by questioning and correction.
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