ESA Vigil

ESA Vigil

• The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Vigil mission, formerly known as Lagrange, is a planned solar weather mission. Under this mission, two spacecraft will be stationed at the Lagrangian points L1 and L5, respectively.
• It’s the first of its kind mission, with the aim of monitoring the unpredictable and active Sun and helps protect the Earth from its outbursts.
• Solar flares, coronal mass ejections, geomagnetic storms, solar proton events, and other space weather incidences will be monitored by ESA Vigil.
• Monitoring of the space incidences will help in predicting the timing of its arrival on Earth and any effect it might have on infrastructure.
• This mission plans to position two spacecraft in the L1 and L5 Lagrangian points, where gravitational forces interact to provide a stable region where propellant may be saved and observations can be made. Since L1 is located in the solar wind ‘upstream’ from Earth measurements at the L1 will provide information about the space weather approaching Earth. The L5 point, on the other hand, allows the tracking of Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) from the side in order to assess their speed and direction.

Published date : 12 Mar 2022 05:47PM