Polish company Astronika is to develop key components for the European Space Agency’s Vigil probe, a mission designed to improve the safety of satellites, spacecraft and astronauts in orbit.
The company said in a press release it has signed a contract with ESA to design and build instrument booms which will be delivered in 2028.
The mission is scheduled for launch in 2031.
Vigil — Latin for “guardian” — will be Europe’s first dedicated space weather monitoring satellite. Operating from the Sun–Earth L5 Lagrange point, located between the Earth and the Sun, the spacecraft will detect potentially hazardous solar events before they become visible from Earth.
Data collected by Vigil will be transmitted to the Space Weather Service Network operated by ESA’s Space Weather Office.
The agency says this will give operators time to protect power grids and telecommunications networks on Earth, as well as satellites in orbit and astronauts aboard the International Space Station.
“The probe will continuously feed data in near real time, thanks to which we will receive information about potentially dangerous events much earlier than we would be able to learn by observing the Sun from Earth,” the release states. Data from the measuring equipment will be transmitted from deep space to Earth without interference.
“Without warning, space weather storms can cause potentially serious health problems for astronauts and the economic impact of space weather can be extensive, especially as we come to rely more and more on critical technologies underlying navigation, banking, aviation, power grids and telecommunications,” said Holger Krag, Head of the Space Safety Programme at ESA.
Poland’s contribution to the Vigil mission includes designing a deployment mechanism to position magnetometers seven metres away from the satellite. Maksymilian Gawin, Astronika’s deputy director for business development, said the company’s solution would ensure high magnetic purity.
“If we were to compare the Earth's magnetic field - the same one that moves compass needles - to the height of Mount Everest, the magnetic field generated by our device would be like a few-millimetre elevation, practically unnoticeable. Additionally, our device must be extremely reliable, which forces the use of fully passive drive and deployment methods, e.g. springs instead of motors,” he said.
Astronika has previously participated in missions aimed at mitigating space-related threats. The company prepared radar antennas for the European-Japanese RAMSES (Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety) mission, scheduled for launch in 2028. In 2029, the probe is set to approach the asteroid Apophis, which will pass Earth at a distance of about 32,000 kilometres. (PAP)
abu/ agt/
tr. RL
