It will mark yet another milestone, in the cooperative efforts of these nations -- largely without need for NASA input. Messrs. Tangerine, and Musk, should take heed. The world is going to leave them behind, if they insist on being "top dawg" in every discussion. But I applaud the cooperative work of science experts, across the globe -- for largely ignoring artificial political lines on one map some General drew a half century or more, ago. Here's the latest, from ESA's Paris HQ:
. . .Satellite separation is due to take place about 18 minutes after liftoff, with the first acquisition of signal by the flight control team at ESA’s ESEC establishment in Redu, Belgium, anticipated around a quarter of an hour later.
The latest member of ESA’s family of in-orbit demonstration missions, Proba-3 is in fact two spacecraft being launched together, which in orbit will separate to begin performing precise formation flying, precise to a single millimetre, about the thickness of an average fingernail.
By blocking out the fiery disc of the Sun, Proba-3’s ‘Occulter’ spacecraft will mimic a terrestrial total solar eclipse, to open up views of the Sun’s faint surrounding atmosphere, or ‘corona’, which is a million times fainter than its parent star. Proba-3’s second ‘Coronagraph’ spacecraft hosts the optical instrument that will observe the solar corona.
On Earth, total solar eclipses only occur every 18 months on average, and last just for a few minutes. Solar scientists have to travel all over the world to take advantage of them. Proba-3 will be able to create solar eclipses on demand, observing closer to the edge of the Sun than any previous Earth- or space-based instrument, down to just 1.1 solar radii. And it will do so for six hours per 19-hour 36-minute orbit. [Do see the YouTube explainer, immediately below]. . . .
Do check back Wednesday, for a live feed of / window on the launch, here. Grin.
नमस्ते
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