PROBA Satellites Takes Picture Of Erupting Volcano Aetna

ROBO SPACE

Etna in action by Proba Team

Brussels - Nov 01, 2002
24 hours after the Aetna's eruption, PROBA, the 1st mini satellite made in Belgium, shoots a picture of the lava and ashes belching volcano.

As soon the PROBA team heard the news of the erupting volcano, the longitude and latitude of the target area were communicated to the satellite as soon as possible. Yesterday morning PROBA took the picture with the Compact High Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (CHRIS) and sent the data to the ESA ground station at Redu with this picture as a result.

Herewith PROBA proves again after one year in orbit to be flexible enough to function quickly and accurately. Verhaert developed PROBA, acronym for Project for On-Board Autonomy, for the European Space Agency ESA. Primary goal of this mission is demonstration of the possibilities and advantages of the on-board autonomy: fulfilling a number of assignments with minimal intervention of the ground station.

PROBA was built by the Kruibeke firm Verhaert for the European Space Agency (ESA), with the support of the Belgian Federal Office for Scientific, Technical and Cultural Affairs (OSTC). To this end Verhaert cooperated with Belgian companies such as Spacebel (on-board software), SAS (Ground station & operations) and OIP (High Resolution Camera and Wide Angle Camera).

At an international level the University of Sherbrooke (Canada) was involved for the Attitude Orbit Control System (AOCS), Patria Finnavitec (Finland) and Contraves (Switzerland) supplied the spacecraft instruments for debris and radiations measurements and Officine Galileo (Italy) delivered the solar panels.

CHRIS is the main payload on board the satellite and was built by the English company SIRA with support of the British National Space Council (BNSC).

ROBO SPACE

Proba Marks One Year On Orbit

Paris (ESA) Oct 23, 2002
It is exactly one year today since the launch of ESA's first small autonomous spacecraft, Proba; a year in which Proba, and the instruments on board, have successfully carried out all the tasks they have been set.

ESA's Good-Natured DevILS

Paris (ESA) Oct 25, 2002
The European Space Agency (ESA) has started a 50-million-euro initiative to bring together Europe's leading aerospace companies for the next four years. The aim of DevILS is to develop 'intelligent', lightweight spacecraft systems that ESA can use on future missions. Having these 'plug-and-play' systems will allow Europe to create lighter spacecraft that perform better.

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