After an anomaly onboard Proba-3's Coronagraph spacecraft led to loss of contact between the spacecraft and ground control last February, a tiger team worked relentlessly to get the spacecraft and its ASPIICS coronagraph back. Already in March they managed to re-establish contact with the coronagraph spacecraft.
After about 2 months of careful and gradual testing, a first formation flight was successfully performed last week. This was the moment of truth for the ASPIICS coronagraph.
"After performing very careful checks of the ASPIICS coronagraph instrument, I'm very happy to confirm that it's healthy and fully functional," says Andrei Zhukov of the Royal Observatory of Belgium, the principal investigator for ASPIICS. "Last week's formation flight allowed us to capture new images of the corona, and they look as spectacular as the ones taken before the incident occurred."
Read the full story on the ESA webpage.
