Sriharikota. The countdown for the launch of the European Space Agency (ESA)’s Proba-3 spacecraft, a commercial mission of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), began here on Tuesday. This launch is to take place on December 4. Wednesday’s launch will be a technology demonstration mission. NewSpace India Limited, the commercial arm of ISRO that will launch customer spacecraft, has won orders from the European Space Agency for its latest mission.
An ISRO official told PTI on Tuesday, “The 25-hour countdown started at 3.08 pm on Tuesday and preparation work (for the launch) is still going on.” Proba-3 (Project for Onboard Autonomy) is said to be the world’s first initiative that involves a ‘double-satellite’, in which two spacecraft will fly as one spacecraft to study the outer atmosphere of the Sun.
ISRO said that ‘Probas’ is a Latin word, which means ‘let’s try’. ISRO said the objective of the mission is to demonstrate precise formation flight and two spacecraft – ‘Coronagraph’ and ‘Occulter’ will be launched together. Bengaluru-headquartered ISRO is using its dedicated workhorse ‘Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle’ (PSLV) for this mission.
This will be the 61st flight of the PSLP and the 26th flight of the PSLV-XL variant and is scheduled to be launched from the first launch pad of this spaceport on December 4 at 4.08 pm. The 44.5 meter long rocket will place the 550 kg Proba-3 satellites in the desired orbit after a journey of about 18 minutes.