With the capacity to precisely regulate the two spacecraft's attitude and separation, PROBA-3 will be made up of two autonomous, three-axis stabilized spacecraft that are separated by 150 meters. It will be kept up for six hours, giving the satellite below a fake solar eclipse. In order to facilitate payload operations, the spacecraft pair will fly a highly elliptical orbit that is split into free flight and precise formation flying phases around apogee. Because more fuel is required to keep the orbits in formation when they are farther from apogee, there will be a trade-off in the length of the formation control period.