Major Landmark : ISRO’s Big Leap , Launches Successfully Proba-3 Mission, Two Satellites Placed At Right Orbit

Picture : ISRO/ X

In a first-of-its-kind initiative involving precision-flying, Indian Space Research Organisation have successfully launched the Proba-3 mission onboard a PSLV-C59 rocket, a solar experiment undertaken by the European Space Agency.

ISRO placed the two satellites into the ‘right orbit’ around 18 minutes after lift-off, said Chairman S Somanath.

The Proba-3 (Project for Onboard Autonomy) mission consists of a twin satellite in which two spacecraft (placed inside the satellites) would fly together as one, maintaining a precise formation down to a single millimetre to study the Sun’s outer atmosphere.

NewSpace India Ltd, the commercial arm of ISRO has bagged the order from ESA for the launch, which was a technology demonstration mission.

The mission objective is to demonstrate precise formation flying and the two spacecraft inside the satellites–Coronagraph (310 kg) and Occulter (240 kg) would be launched together in a stacked configuration after the desired orbit level is reached.

At the end of the revised countdown, the 44.5 metre tall PSLV-C59 rocket on its 61st flight and the 26th with PSLV-XL variant lifted off at the prefixed 4.04 pm from this spaceport in Shriharikota.

After soaring into the skies on an 18-minute journey, the rocket successfully separated the two satellites into intended orbit which would be later positioned at the desired orbit by the scientists of ESA in Belgium.

The satellites, as planned, reached the High Earth Orbit and would have a 19.7 orbital period with 60,530 km of apogee (farthest point from the Earth) and 600 km perigee (closest point to the Earth).