Proba-3 Mission Achieves Artificial Solar Eclipse | European Space Agency
“I was absolutely thrilled to see the images, especially since we got them on the first try,” comments Andrei Zhukov, Principal Investigator for ASPIICS at the Royal Observatory of Belgium. “Now we are working on extending the observation time to six hours in every orbit.”
These new images of the Sun were processed by the ASPIICS Science Operations Centre (SOC) hosted by the Royal Observatory of Belgium. Here, a dedicated team of scientists and engineers creates operational commands for the coronagraph based on requests from the scientific community and shares the resulting observations.
Andrei explains: “Each full image—covering the area from the occulted Sun all the way to the edge of the field of view—is actually constructed from three images. The difference between those is only the exposure time, which determines how long the coronagraph’s aperture is exposed to light. Combining the three images gives us the full view of the corona.
“Our ‘artificial eclipse’ images are comparable with those taken during a natural eclipse. The difference is that we can create our eclipse once every 19.6-hour orbit, while total solar eclipses only occur naturally around once, very rarely twice a year. On top of that, natural total eclipses only last a few minutes, while Proba-3 can hold its artificial eclipse for up to 6 hours.”
Proba-3 mission manager Damien Galano notes: “Having two spacecraft form one giant coronagraph in space allowed us to capture the inner corona with very low levels of stray light in our observations, exactly as we expected.
“Although we are still in the commissioning phase, we have already achieved precise formation flying with unprecedented accuracy. This is what allowed us to capture the mission’s first images, which will no doubt be of high value to the scientific community.
“The formation flying we have achieved so far was performed autonomously, but under supervision of the ground control team, who were ready to intervene to correct any potential deviations. Our one remaining task is to achieve full autonomy, when our confidence in the system will be such that we will not even routinely monitor from the ground.”
Proba-3’s breathtaking images are also sparking a small revolution in the way computer models simulate the solar corona and create ‘digital eclipses’.
Over the past years, several institutes around Europe have developed models to simulate these observations and give scientists the means to look at the Sun, but the source material needed to create these simulations is lacking.
“Current coronagraphs are no match for Proba-3, which will observe the Sun’s corona down almost to the edge of the solar surface. So far, this was only possible during natural solar eclipses,” says Jorge Amaya, Space Weather Modelling Coordinator at the European Space Agency (ESA).
“This huge flow of observations will help refine computer models further as we compare and adjust variables to match the real images. Together with the team at KU Leuven, which is behind one such model, we have been able to create a simulation of Proba-3’s first observations.”
KU Leuven’s ‘COCONUT’ software is one of multiple solar coronal models integrated within ESA's Virtual Space Weather Modelling Centre (VSWMC). It can be combined with a vast array of computer models describing other physical processes connecting the Sun to Earth. All together, they help to offer a comprehensive image of the solar phenomena impacting our planet and help citizens and industry prepare against them.
The Proba-3 mission is led by ESA and put together by a consortium managed by Spain’s Sener, with participation of more than 29 companies from 14 countries and with key contributions from GMV and Airbus Defence and Space in Spain and Redwire Space and Spacebel in Belgium. The mission was launched on December 5, 2024 on a PSLV-XL launcher from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India.
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Release Date: June 16, 2025
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