Space mission to create artificial solar eclipses prepares for lift-off

Final preparations are under way for a landmark space mission that will use satellites flying in close formation to create artificial solar eclipses high above the Earth.

- Ian Sample

The Proba-3 mission is the European Space Agency's first attempt at precise formation in orbit and calls for two spacecraft to loop around the planet in an arrangement that never deviates by more than a millimetre - about the thickness of a fingernail.

All being well, the spacecraft will blast off at 10.38am UK-time on Wednesday from India's Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota on the Bay of Bengal coast. After a four-month voyage, the probes will reach a highly elliptic orbit that swoops as close as 370 miles to Earth before swinging out for more than 37,000 miles.

"It's an experiment in space to demonstrate a new concept, a new technology," said Damien Galano, Proba project manager at the Esa. "It's very challenging because we need to control very well the flight path of the two spacecraft."