The Indian Space Research Organization and the European Space Agency are set to launch the Proba-3 solar probe today from Sriharikota, India. The mission consists of two satellites that will study the sun's corona—the outer layer that can reach temperatures of around 2 million degrees and significantly influences Earth through solar flares and mass ejections.
Proba-3 aims to demonstrate precision formation flying, with the satellites maintaining a 150-meter separation to create artificial solar eclipses. The approach allows for extended observations of the sun's corona, lasting up to six hours per orbit, and can generate approximately 50 artificial eclipses annually. The mission has been in development for more than a decade, involving contributions from 14 European countries. See the five questions the project seeks to answer here.
The launch follows the success of ISRO's past missions such as Aditya-L1, India's first space-based solar observatory, and Chandrayaan-3, which made history by achieving a soft landing in the moon’s south polar region.
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