Latest PROBA Stories

The small but powerful camera of ESA's Proba-V mission can fit on a single laboratory table for testing. But when it reaches orbit, this compact sensor will deliver a daily overview of virtually all vegetation growth across Earth.Daily global monitoring is an ambitious enough goal for a full-sized mission, but Proba is ESA's smallest satellite platform "“ smaller than a cubic meter.The aim is to have a microsatellite doing an equivalent job to the wide-swath "˜Vegetation' camera on...

Polar skies glowed with ghostly auroras last week during the biggest geomagnetic storm of 2010. The event owed its origin to a solar eruption a few days earlier "“ revealed here in high-speed detail by ESA's small Sun-watcher Proba-2. Eruptions like this one have several components, most notably solar flares and Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs). Solar flares are caused by sudden impulsive releases of magnetic energy from the surface of the Sun.The flare seen here took place at 11:54 CET on...

After several decades of research and development into hyperspectral imaging, which greatly enhances our ability to characterize the state of Earth, the technique has been embraced by the Earth-observation community and has entered the mainstream of remote sensing.The idea behind hyperspectral imaging, also known as imaging spectroscopy, is simple. In the 1970s, multispectral remote sensors produced images with relatively few broad wavelength bands that allowed us to understand our...

Packed with novel devices and science instruments, Proba-2 is demonstrating technologies for future ESA missions while providing new views of our Sun.At a press conference on Tuesday at the Royal Observatory of Belgium in Brussels, the team behind the small satellite declared themselves extremely happy with its first three months in orbit and unveiled Proba-2's first solar observations.Since its launch on November 2, Proba-2's numerous subsystems have been switched on one by one and their...

Proba-2 is among the smallest spacecraft ever launched by ESA "“ less than a cubic meter "“ but it prepares technologies for future ESA missions, as well as giving scientists a new view of the Sun. Launched on November 2, 2009, Proba-2 is the result of European collaboration, with Belgian industry as a major participant. The objective of the mission is to test new spacecraft and instrument technology in space.The satellite is equipped with a quartet of new science instruments focusing...

Bring together a small group of highly motivated researchers, grant them full access to laboratory and production facilities, remove all administrative distractions, and let them work intensively for four to six months. That's what "˜StarTiger' is all about!It is a different approach to conducting research and development that aims to demonstrate the feasibility of a new and promising technology within a very short time scale.Within this initiative, ESA is running a six-month crash effort to...

The MIRAS instrument on ESA's SMOS satellite, launched earlier this month, has been switched on and is operating normally. MIRAS will map soil moisture and ocean salinity to improve our understanding of the role these two key variables play in regulating Earth's water cycle."Following the switch-on, MIRAS is working beautifully well with all key subsystems, including all of the receivers, the optical fibers and the correlator unit, in perfect functioning condition," said ESA's...

Into its second week in orbit, Proba-2's spacecraft platform has proven to be in excellent health. This leaves the way clear for commissioning the many new technology payloads aboard the mini-satellite, among the smallest ever flown by ESA.As ESA's full-sized Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission soared skyward by Rockot launcher on 2 November, it had a smaller companion. Piggybacking along was Proba-2, which occupies less than a cubic meter in volume with only one fifth of SMOS's...

The European Space Agency launched two new satellites on Monday in an effort to gather more data on global climate change.The ESA on Monday launched the second satellite in its Earth Explorer series, known as the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission.Additionally, ESA launched the Proba-2 satellite along with SMOS in order to demonstrate technology for ESA's future space probes.Both satellites were lifted into space from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia aboard a Rockot launch...

In readiness for launch on November 2, ESA's SMOS and Proba-2 satellites "“ encapsulated in the launcher fairing "“ have been transported from the cleanroom and installed in the launch tower at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia.This morning, the "˜upper composite' of satellites joined to the Breeze-KM upper stage and sealed within the fairing was transported by rail from the cleanroom in the integration facilities to the launch pad. It took around four hours for the train to...