Anomaly delays ISRO’s ESA Proba-3 launch to Thursday

New Delhi: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) rescheduled its European Space Agency (ESA) Proba-3 Sun observation mission to Thursday.

The launch was postponed due to an undisclosed anomaly that occurred after the “countdown progressed smoothly”.

“Due to an anomaly detected in PROBA-3 spacecraft PSLV-C59/PROBA-3 launch rescheduled to tomorrow,” ISRO posted on social media platform X.

ISRO’s PSLV-XL rocket was earlier expected to launch the ESA Proba-3 mission on Wednesday. The mission will now take flight on Thursday at 4:12 pm from the First Launch Pad (FLP) at Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC-SHAR), Sriharikota, the agency said.

ESA’s Proba-3 will be the first mission to launch from India since the Proba-1 mission in 2001, underscoring deepening space collaboration.

The Proba-3 satellites were flown to the Chennai airport from Liege in Belgium, following which they were trucked to the spaceport at Sriharikota.

PSLV-C59 vehicle will carry the Proba-3 spacecraft into a highly elliptical orbit as a dedicated commercial mission of NewSpace India Limited (NSIL). The launch also reflects India’s growing contributions to global space exploration.

“This mission, powered by NSIL with ISRO’s engineering excellence, reflects the strength of international collaboration. A proud milestone in India’s space journey and a shining example of global partnerships,” ISRO said.

Proba-3 aims to study the Sun’s faint corona closer to the solar rim. It is an in-orbit demonstration (IOD) mission of the ESA, which aims to demonstrate precise formation flying.

It consists of 2 spacecraft — the Coronagraph Spacecraft (CSC) and the Occulter Spacecraft (OSC) — and will be launched together in a stacked configuration aboard the PSLV-XL rocket, the ISRO noted. It will be the 61st flight of PSLV and the 26th using PSLV-XL configuration.

The spacecraft will create a 144-metre-long instrument known as a solar coronagraph, enabling scientists to study the Sun’s corona which is difficult to observe due to the brightness of the solar disk.

–IANS