The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has postponed the launch of the Proba-3 mission by a day. This mission was to be launched today, Wednesday at 4:08 p.m., by the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota.
ISRO said that due to a technical glitch, the mission will now be launched on Thursday i.e. December 5 at 4:16 p.m. This mission belongs to the European Space Agency (ESA). Its objective is to study the outer atmosphere of the Sun using two satellites: Coronagraph and Occulter.
The Polar Satellite mission will be launched via ISRO’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle.
The two satellites will remain at a distance of 150 meters from each other. Both satellites will rotate in Earth’s elliptical orbit. Their maximum distance from Earth will be 60,530 km and the second minimum will be about 600 km. In this orbit, the two satellites will be able to maintain a distance of 150 meters from each other and will operate as a unit.
The Occult satellite has a 1.4 meter occulting disk designed to block the bright disk of the Sun. This causes an artificial solar eclipse. In this shadow, the Coronagraph satellite will observe the solar corona with its telescope.
The main goal of Proba-3 is to improve our understanding of space weather, including solar storms and coronal mass ejections. In this mission, the space agency also wishes to validate its advanced formation flight technologies via two satellites. I want to find out why the corona is hotter than the surface of the Sun and how the solar wind speeds up.