ISRO's PSLV-C59 To Launch Proba-3 Mission: Date, Time, Venue, How To Watch Live And More

The Indian Space and Research Organisation is all set to launch the Proba-3 mission on its PSLV-C59 launch vehicle in collaboration with the European Space Agency.

ESA's Proba-3 Mission is happening in collaboration with ISRO's commercial arm NewSpace India Limited (NSIL).

The twin spacecraft from the European Space Agency arrived in India last month. To prime it for launch, the spacecraft was integrated and stacked at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh.

The two Proba-3 spacecraft will be launched together aboard the PSLV-XL rocket and positioned in a highly elliptical orbit, reaching as far as 60,000 km from Earth before descending to a low point of just 600 km.

Here is everything you need to know about the Proba-3 solar mission.

In a post on X, ISRO said that the Proba-3 mission will be launched on Dec. 4 from the First Launch Pad (FLP), Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC-SHAR), Sriharikota. The launch time has been scheduled at 4:08 p.m. IST

Space enthusiasts can also view the launch in person from the viewing gallery at Sriharikota by registering themselves on ISRO's website.

The ISRO's PSLV-C59/Proba-3 Mission will be streamed live on the space agency's website, YouTube channel and all social media handles.

The Proba-3 mission will study the solar corona, which is the hottest and outermost part of the Sun’s atmosphere. The mission is set to be the world’s first ‘precision formation flying’ in space.

"A pair of satellites will fly together maintaining a fixed configuration as a 'large rigid structure' in space to prove formation flying technologies and rendezvous experiments," the ESA said in a blog.

The two satellites will together create a solar coronagraph approximately 150 meters in length, designed to study the sun’s faint corona closer to the solar rim than ever before. In addition to its scientific significance, the experiment will serve as an ideal tool to assess the precise positioning of the two spacecraft. This will be made possible through the use of a range of new technologies.

"Proba-3 will function as an orbital laboratory, demonstrating acquisition, rendezvous, proximity operations and formation flying, while validating innovative metrology sensors and control algorithms, opening up novel methods of mission control," according to the information on ISRO's website.

"The 2 satellites will adopt a fixed configuration in space, 150m apart while lined up with the Sun so that OSC blocks out the brilliant solar disk for the CSC. This will open up continuous views of the Sun’s faint corona, or surrounding atmosphere, for scientific observation," it added.