India's space agency ISRO launches Proba-3 mission satellites
Isro launches Proba-3 mission satellites.
India's space agency – Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) – on Thursday (Dec 5) launched the Proba 3 mission satellites from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC-SHAR) in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh
The spacecraft is being carried by the PSLV-C59 vehicle into a highly elliptical orbit as a dedicated commercial mission of NewSpace India Limited (NSIL).
In a post on X, ISRO said, "Liftoff Achieved! PSLV-C59 has successfully soared into the skies, marking the commencement of a global mission led by NSIL, with ISRO’s technical expertise, to deploy ESA’s groundbreaking PROBA-3 satellites."
The mission launch was scheduled for Wednesday but did not happendue to an anomaly detected in the Proba-3 spacecraft.
Proba-3: An IOD mission of the ESA
&im=FitAndFill=(700,400))
Meet top 5 Indian batters with most ODI runs in 2025, check who tops the list
&im=FitAndFill=(700,400))
‘Speed-of-light defence’: How Iron Beam shoots down rockets in seconds
&im=FitAndFill=(700,400))
100kW vs 10kW: Why Israel built two laser weapon systems with near-zero interception cost
&im=FitAndFill=(700,400))
Iron Beam vs drones: What happens when laser meets swarm attacks?
&im=FitAndFill=(700,400))
Tata Sierra's petrol mileage: How efficient is the 1.5 NA engine?
&im=FitAndFill=(700,400))
Inside Rafael: How the company behind Iron Dome and Iron Beam became a leader in missile defence systems
&im=FitAndFill=(700,400))
Iron Beam future upgrade: What a 300-kW version could do
&im=FitAndFill=(700,400))
Meet top 5 batters with most runs in 2025, check who tops the list
&im=FitAndFill=(700,400))
Top 5 bowlers in latest ICC T20I bowling rankings 2025, one Indian on list
)
Hillary Clinton's $90 mn divorce over Bill Clinton's Jeffrey Epstein connection
&im=FitAndFill=(700,400))
‘Near-zero interception cost, unlimited magazine’: Top 6 features of Iron Beam, world’s first operational laser shield
According to ISRO, the Proba-3 missionis an In-Orbit Demonstration (IOD) mission of the European Space Agency (ESA).
The mission's goal is to demonstrate precise formation flying. "It consistsof 2 spacecraftviz. the Coronagraph Spacecraft (CSC) and the Occulter Spacecraft (OSC) and it will be launched together in a stacked configuration," ISRO said.
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 ESA said that the mission would demonstrateformation flying in the context of a large-scale science experiment.
What will Proba-3 study?
The two satellites of the mission will togetherform an approximately 150-metre-longsolar coronagraph to study the Sun's faint corona closer to the solar rim.
The satellites will beprecisely aligned so that the Occulter spacecraft casts a shadow across the Coronagraph spacecraft, thereby enabling the visibility of the faint solar corona, WION earlier reported.
If the two are not perfectly aligned, then the bright disc of the Sun will not be hidden from the instrument and the corona will be obscured by its bright light.