{"id":799828,"date":"2025-12-19T09:25:30","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T14:25:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=799828"},"modified":"2025-12-19T09:25:30","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T14:25:30","slug":"a-first-in-space-autonomy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=799828","title":{"rendered":"A first in space autonomy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"modal__tab-content--details\">\n<div class=\"modal__tab-description\">\n<p>ESA has achieved a historic milestone,\u00a0autonomous formation flying\u00a0with\u00a0millimetre-level precision.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cProba-3 proves that bold in-orbit experimentation is essential to turning breakthrough ideas into real space capabilities. ESA does not just design innovation, it flies it\u201d, explains Ian Carnelli, ESA Head of Systems Department.<\/p>\n<p>With\u00a0PROBA-3, two\u00a0spacecraft\u00a0operate\u00a0as\u00a0one distributed system\u00a0&#8211; fully autonomously, without guidance from Earth.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Powered by on-board autonomous vision and optical and laser metrology, they detect each other from kilometres away, rendezvous, and maintain an ultra-stable formation in orbit.<\/p>\n<p>At\u00a0the core of PROBA-3:\u00a0<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Cooperative and non-cooperative navigation\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Autonomous GNC\u00a0and manoeuvring capability\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>On-board formation management\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Autonomous safety &amp; collision avoidance\u00a0\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\n<b>The result<\/b>\u00a0<br \/>A\u00a0virtual rigid structure in orbit,\u00a0reconfigurable and resizable, with no continuous ground control\u00a0or\u00a0manual intervention.\u00a0Just trusted onboard intelligence.\u00a0PROBA-3 is not a demo.\u00a0It is a blueprint for next-generation space systems\u00a0and\u00a0represents\u00a0how\u00a0Europe is leading autonomous spaceflight.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cProba-3 shows why in-orbit technology demonstration matters. ESA deliberately takes bold technical risks in space, pushes systems beyond what has ever flown before, and delivers. This is how ground-breaking technologies become operational capabilities , not on paper, but in orbit\u201d, says Damien, the Proba-3 mission manager.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>\t\t\t<label style=\"display: block; font-size: 0.9em; color: #8197A6; margin: 3rem 0 -1rem 0;\">Embed code<\/label><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<textarea rows=\"4\" cols=\"60\">&lt;iframe width=&#8221;649&#8243; height=&#8221;360&#8243; src=&#8221; frameborder=&#8221;0&#8243; allow=&#8221;encrypted-media&#8221; allowfullscreen&gt;&lt;\/iframe&gt;<\/textarea><\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.esa.int\/ESA_Multimedia\/Videos\/2025\/12\/A_first_in_space_autonomy?rand=772187\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ESA has achieved a historic milestone,\u00a0autonomous formation flying\u00a0with\u00a0millimetre-level precision.\u00a0 \u201cProba-3 proves that bold in-orbit experimentation is essential to turning breakthrough ideas into real space capabilities. ESA does not just design&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":799829,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-799828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-multimedia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=799828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/799829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=799828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=799828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=799828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}