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'Miracle': Europe reconnects with lost spacecraft

105 points by vrganj

by tetris11

1 subcomments

> Proba-3, works just like a real solar eclipse. One spacecraft, which is roughly circular when viewed from the front, orbits closer to the sun, and its job is to block the bright parts of the sun, acting as the moon would in a real eclipse. It casts a shadow on a second probe that has a camera capable of photographing the resulting artificial eclipse.
> Having two separate spacecraft flying independently but in such a way that one casts a shadow on the other is a challenging task. But future missions depend on scientists figuring out how to make this precision choreography technology work, and so Proba-3 is a test.
Oh wow, they've potentially rescued this (very cool!) mission for both probes

by stevage

0 subcomment

It says the spacecraft was tumbling, but implies that due to regaining solar power it has achieved a stable position. I'm curious about the missing steps there...

by touwer

5 subcomments

I'm glad that this site at least left ~10% of the screen on my phone to read the article, next to all banners and newsletter ads. It's not 5%, great!

by 1shooner

1 subcomments

I'm sure there is an engineering or physics reason, but why can't the occulter be an attached, smaller-diameter disc?

by temphaaa

0 subcomment

can someone tell me the reason how that happen? it's not clear to me from the article, i mean the chain of reacyion part

by graemep

3 subcomments

The European Space Agency, not 'Europe'. Just as annoying as calling the EU Europe, and calling both Europe despite different membership is just confusing.

by anonymousiam

0 subcomment

Am I the only one who cannot access this article?
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by TheOpenSourcer

0 subcomment