Verhaert boldly goes

Space technology company Verhaert Space last week gave a last glimpse of its Proba-2 satellite before it is packed up and sent to Russia for launch in November. Proba-2 was commissioned from the Kruibeke-based company by the European Space Agency (ESA). It will be launched to an orbit of 728km, where it will study the sun using two specialised instruments.

One of these, LYRA, is a UV-meter that can draw a timeline of the radiation "behaviour" of the sun. The other, the SWAP telescope, constructs a film using images of the sun's activity. The satellite, which uses one-twentieth of the power of an average refrigerator, cost €18 million for development and construction.

The Proba-2 launch comes eight years after launch of Proba-1, Belgium's first satellite, which is still in orbit. The satellite will be transported together with the ESA's SMOS satellite. Data from Proba-2 will be processed in Redu in the Ardennes.

(July 8, 2009)