ESA’s Next Space Mission Will Create An Artificial Solar Eclipse

Following the successful launch of the Solar Orbiter, the European Space Agency (ESA) unveiled the details of its next mission that will study the Sun. According to the agency, its upcoming mission will fly in formation to create an artificial solar eclipse.

The future mission is known as Proba-3. It consists of two satellites that will be launched sometime in mid-2022.

Once the satellites have been deployed in Earth orbit, the two will position themselves at less than 150 meters apart. The two satellites must maintain this formation for a certain period of time during the duration of the observation process.

The Proba-3 satellites will then line up in between the Earth and the Sun to cast an artificial solar eclipse for about six hours. According to the ESA, blocking out the solar disc would allow the agency’s scientist to get a clear and sustained view of the Sun.

According to the system’s engineer Damien Galano, the mission requires a high level of accuracy.

“To achieve this, the satellite pair must achieve an unprecedented precision of flight control,” he said in a statement. “They must align along an average distance of 144 m apart, maintained to an accuracy of a few millimeters.”

The main objective of the mission is to study the Sun’s atmosphere, which is known as the corona. Extending millions of kilometers from the massive star’s surface, the corona is the main source of solar events that threaten Earth. Some of these solar threats include solar winds and coronal mass ejections, which are known to disrupt electricity, satellite communication and GPS navigation.

As explained by the ESA, creating an artificial solar eclipse would allow scientists a rare opportunity to directly study the corona. Doing so would provide valuable information regarding the nature of solar magnetic eruptions and how they evolve as they leave the surface of the Sun.

“Up until now, the best way to see the corona is briefly during a solar eclipse on Earth, or else using a 'coronagraph' instrument incorporating one or more blocking—or 'occulting' – discs to blot out the Sun's disc,” Andrei Zhukov, a principal investigator for Proba-3 explained.