A European mission that will use two satellites to create artificial eclipses in Earth orbit launched early Thursday morning (Dec. 5) after a 24-hour delay. The European Space Agency's (ESA) Proba-3 ...

For the first time, two spacecraft in orbit were aligned in formation with millimeter precision and maintained their relative position for several hours without any control from the ground. The ...

A pair of European satellites have created the first artificial solar eclipses by flying in precise and fancy formation, providing hours of on-demand totality for scientists. The European Space Agency ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Credit: ESA — P. Carril, ...

The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) has helped to establish that femtosecond comb lasers can provide accurate measurement of absolute distance in formation flying space missions. NPL, along with ...

Generally speaking, space missions are being performed with lone spacecraft heading out into the void to achieve the desired goal of their makers. Sure, these machines might release other, smaller ...

A pair of spacecraft just launched to create hundreds of artificial solar eclipses in orbit. The European Space Agency mission, called Proba-3, will allow scientists “to see an eclipse on demand,” as ...

The Sun’s inner corona appears greenish in this image taken on 23 May 2025 by the ASPIICS coronagraph aboard Proba-3, ESA’s formation-flying mission capable of creating artificial total solar eclipses ...

MILAN—The European Space Agency (ESA) is preparing to launch a pair of satellites to demonstrate precision formation-flying in orbit. Liftoff of the Proba-3 mission is slated for Nov. 29 aboard an ...

Satellites would be based on cubesat designs provided by Open Cosmos. Credit: Open Cosmos Astroscale UK and Open Cosmos have won a £5.15 million ($6.9 million) contract from the UK Ministry of Defense ...