Tuesday 11 October 2022, by Milan Maksimovic
Solar Orbiter is a mission dedicated to solar and heliospheric physics. It was selected as the first medium-class mission of ESA’s Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 Programme. The spacecraft was launched on February 10, 2020 from the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida.
The Solar Orbiter mission aims to make significant breakthroughs in our understanding both of how the inner heliosphere works, and of the effects of solar activity on it. The spacecraft takes a unique combination of measurements: in situ measurements will be used alongside remote sensing close to the Sun to relate these measurements back to their source regions and structures on the Sun’s surface. It operates both in and out of the ecliptic plane. Solar Orbiter measures solar wind plasma, fields, waves and energetic particles close enough to the Sun to ensure that they are still relatively pristine.
The top level science questions of the mission are :
More information can be found on the ESA Solar Orbiter website.