Proba is the first Belgian satellite and ESA's first fully autonomous spacecraft — five earth-observation instruments, built in 3 years at a fraction of the conventional budget. Critical Chain kept a project of that complexity on track.
Building Belgium's first satellite — and ESA's first fully autonomous spacecraft — meant coordinating five earth-observation instruments and dozens of interdependent workstreams, with none of the slack a conventional space budget usually buys. Task-level due dates and local safety margins were adding delay without adding real protection.
Bureau Léonard applied Critical Chain to protect the project's real deadline instead of each task's own due date — pooling safety into shared buffers, prioritising work by buffer penetration, and giving the team a single, honest signal for what needed attention next.
Critical Chain brought more stable planning, clearer priorities, and better risk management to a project with very little room for error. Proba launched successfully and exceeded expectations.
Read more about the domain this case sits in: Project Management →