SOURCE: UNI
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will launch the European Space Agency’s (ESA) two satellites as of part Proba-3 mission onboard its reliable and workhorse launch vehicle PSLV from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, SHAR Rage, Sriharikota on December four. Proba-3, ESA’s and the world’s first precision formation-flying mission, will carry two satellites– the 200 kg Occulter Spacecraft (OSC) and the 340 kg Coronagraph Spacecraft (CSC).
ISRO will be using its XL version of PSLV for the mission and the two spacecrafts will be injected into a high elliptical orbit at an apogee of 60,500 km and a perigee of 600 km with an inclination of 59 degrees in a stack configuration. 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.
The twin satellites will fly together, maintaining a fixed configuration as if they were a single large rigid structure in space, to prove formation flying and rendezvous technologies, ESA said in its website on Saturday. 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.