Abstract :
[en] PROBA-3 [1] [2] is a Mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) composed of two formation-flying satellites,
planned for their joint launch by the end of 2018. Its main purposes have a dual nature: scientific and technological. In
particular, it is designed to observe and study the inner part of the visible solar corona, thanks to a dedicated coronagraph
called ASPIICS (Association of Spacecraft for Polarimetric and Imaging Investigation of the Corona of the Sun), and to
demonstrate the in-orbit formation flying (FF) and attitude control capability of its two satellites.
The Coronagraph payload on-board PROBA-3 consists of the following parts: the Coronagraph Instrument (CI) with the
Shadow Position Sensor (SPS) on the Coronagraph Spacecraft (CSC), the Occulter Position Sensor (OPSE) [3] [4] and
the External Occulting (EO) disk on the Occulter Spacecraft (OSC).
The SPS subsystem [5] is one of the main metrological devices of the Mission, adopted to control and to maintain the
relative (i.e. between the two satellites) and absolute (i.e. with respect to the Sun) FF attitude. It is composed of eight
micro arrays of silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) [6] that shall be able to measure, with the required sensitivity and
dynamic range as asked by ESA, the penumbral light intensity on the Coronagraph entrance pupil.
With the present paper we describe the testing activities on the SPS breadboard (BB) and Development Model (DM) as
well as the present status and future developments of this PROBA-3 metrological subsystem.
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