SENER leads the team formed jointly with the company GMV to produce the complete Formation Fight (FF) system of the Proba-3 mission. This is the third mission in the Proba series of small satellites of the European Space Agency (ESA) to validate developments in their space systems. In turn, it carries an additional payload including scientific instruments, which benefits directly from the innovations that are being tested. Proba is part of ESA’s Orbital Technology Demonstration Programme, subsidised by the General Support Technology Programme (GSTP).

Proba-3 will demonstrate in-flight the technologies needed for multiple spacecraft to carry out formation flights, using two low-cost satellites, for subsequent implementation in similar types of future missions (e.g., XEUS, SYMBOL-X, MAX, GRI, Darwin etc.). Among other technologies, Proba-3 will verify different types of acquisition, manoeuvres, safety and maintenance of multiple-spacecraft formations. It also includes mechanisms for detecting collision risk or “evaporation”, and the manoeuvres needed to avoid them (Collision and Evaporation Avoidance: CEAM). It will also include a scientific mission with the two satellites in formation to research the sun’s corona, in which one of the satellites will conceal the inner part of the sun and the other carries the detector for observing the sun’s outer corona.

In November 2007, the bridge phase of the programme began, in which a core team, led by the Swedish Space Corporation (SSC), consolidated the results of the Phase A studies, conducted by two different consortia during 2006 and 2007. The team directed by SENER and GMV is a major player of the core team and manages the entire Proba-3 Formation Flight system, which includes, among other aspects, Formation Flight management and Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC). The current bridge phase ends in May-June 2008 and the process for initiating subsequent phases B and C/D has already begun with the same industrial structure. Phase B of the project has been initiated during the first semester of 2009.