ESA Solar Orbiter Mission

Synonyms

ESA – European Space Agency; NASA

Definition

Solar Orbiter is an ESA-led mission with strong NASA participation which was launched on 10 February 2020 from Cape Canaveral. It carries the most comprehensive payload flown in the inner heliosphere to date, with six remote sensing instruments that image the Sun and its surroundings as well as four in situ instruments for monitoring the solar wind. The mission will address key questions of solar and heliospheric physics pertaining to how the Sun creates and controls the heliosphere, and why solar activity changes with time.

History

The Solar Orbiter mission has its origins in a proposal called “Messenger” that was submitted in 1982 in response to an ESA call for mission ideas. At the meeting “Crossroads for European Solar and Heliospheric Physics” held on Tenerife in March 1998, the heliophysics community recommended to launch an ESA Solar Orbiter as ESA’s next flexible mission, with possible international participation, for launch...