Abstract  

  In this talk I will mainly discuss the PROBA missions. PROBA stands for 'PRoject for Onboard Autonomy', which is part of ESA's in-orbit Technology Demonstration programm. The missions are designed to test new technologies, and if successful, be used for scientific research. I will primarily focus on the PROBA2 mission, which hosts 17 new technological developments and 4 scientific instruments including two solar instruments, SWAP and LYRA, an EUV observing CMOS detector and a Large yield radiometer. I will discuss the mission concept, its observations and how we run such a small mission from Belgium. I will briefly talk about PROBA3, which is currently in preparation, but will ultimately be a formation flying coronagraph. Finally I will talk about a new space weather observing coronagraph mission I'm working on which intends to build a versatile low power coronagraph that can be flown on any satellite. In particular I will focus on the software design and the difficulties of designing such a system for universal use.