Launch of the Proba-3 mission and of the ESA coronagraph ASPIICS
WHEN: 4 Dicember 2024
The Proba-3 mission, which will be launched on Wednesday 4 December 2024, at 11:38 Italian time, will carry the ASPIICS coronagraph, mounted on two independent satellites, which will orbit the Earth in formation.
The involvement of INAF/Osservatorio Astrofisico di Torino in the ASPIICS project concerns multiple aspects of primary importance for the mission itself. The first concerns the study, development, construction and qualification and acceptance tests of the SPS (Shadow Position Sensors) metrological system, which has the function of controlling the positioning of the satellite that hosts the telescope in the shadow of the occulter, the latter mounted on the other satellite, 150 m away from the first.
The sensors of the SPS system, thanks to the dedicated algorithm, also developed by INAF/OATo, will be able to perform the position measurement with an accuracy of less than 0.5 mm, as required by the need to occult the solar disk for a diameter slightly greater than the apparent diameter of the solar disk itself. For this reason, it is one of the most accurate instruments on board Proba-3.
The Turin Astrophysical Observatory was also involved in the activities for the creation of the OPSE (Occulter Position SEnsors) metrological system, which, based on a trio of LEDs positioned at the center of the occulter surface facing the telescope, will allow, as in the case of the SPS, to measure the relative displacement between the two satellites.
The interest of the INAF/OATo group in this mission is above all scientific; for this reason, it has created the very narrow spectral band filters that will be used for the observation of the coronal ionized plasma.
Finally, involvement in the mission was also fundamental in the calibration phase of the instrument, carried out at the OPSys Space Laboratory, INAF/OATo and hosted at ALTEC, Turin, and will continue with the analysis of scientific data even after the launch, as the group is part of the Proba-3 Science Working Team.