 | |
| Names | Formerly known as Lagrange |
|---|---|
| Mission type | Space Weather nowcast/forecast |
| Operator | European Space Agency |
| COSPAR ID | TBD |
| SATCAT no. | TBD |
| Website | https://www.esa.int/Space_Safety/Vigil |
| Mission duration | Cruise phase: 3 years
Operations: 4.5 years Extension: up to 5 years |
| Spacecraft properties | |
| Launch mass | 2,500 kg (limit) |
| Dry mass | ~1,100 kg |
| Payload mass | ~150 kg (before system margins) |
| Power | Spacecraft ~1000 W; Payload ~200 W |
| Start of mission | |
| Launch date | 2031 (planned)[1] |
| Rocket | Ariane 62 |
| Launch site | Guiana Space Centre |
| Contractor | Arianespace |
| Orbital parameters | |
| Reference system | Sun-Earth L5 |
| Regime | Lissajous orbit |
Vigil,[2] formerly known as Lagrange,[3] is a space weather mission developed by the European Space Agency. The mission will provide the ESA Space Weather Office with instruments able to monitor the Sun, its solar corona and interplanetary medium between the Sun and Earth, to provide early warnings of increased solar activity, to identify and mitigate potential threats to society and ground, airborne and space based infrastructure as well as to allow 4 to 5 days space weather forecasts.[4] To this purpose the Vigil mission will place for the first time a spacecraft at Sun-Earth Lagrange point 5 (L5) from where it would get a 'side' view of the Sun, observing regions of solar activity on the solar surface before they turn and face Earth.
Monitoring space weather includes events such as solar flares, coronal mass ejections, geomagnetic storms, solar proton events, etc.[5] The Sun-Earth L5 location provides opportunities for space weather forecasting by monitoring the Sun beyond the Eastern solar limb not visible from Earth, thus increasing the forecast lead time of potentially hazardous solar phenomena including solar flares, fast solar wind streams.
The Vigil mission will improve the assessment of Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) motion and density, speed/energy, arrival time and impact on Earth to support protection of the critical infrastructure on ground and in space. The mission will also perform in-situ observations of the solar wind bulk velocity, density, and temperature as well as the Interplanetary magnetic field(IMF) at L5, to provide enhanced detection and forecasting of high-speed solar wind streams and co-rotating interaction regions.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
sn-20240523was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ "Introducing: ESA Vigil". www.esa.int. Retrieved 2023-06-19.
- ^ "The "no name" space weather mission". www.esa.int. Retrieved 2023-06-19.
- ^ Kraft, S.; Luntama, J. P.; Puschmann, K. G. (2017-09-25). "Remote sensing optical instrumentation for enhanced space weather monitoring from the L1 and L5 Lagrange points". In Karafolas, Nikos; Cugny, Bruno; Sodnik, Zoran (eds.). International Conference on Space Optics — ICSO 2016. SPIE. p. 81. doi:10.1117/12.2296100. ISBN 978-1-5106-1613-4. S2CID 134935417.
- ^ Monitoring space weather. European Space Agency (ESA). 4 December 2017.