N° 4–2020: Liftoff for Solar Orbiter, ESA’s mission to face the Sun up close

Facing the Sun

 

Solar Orbiter, an ESA-led mission with strong NASA participation, will provide the first views of the Sun’s uncharted polar regions, giving unprecedented insight into how our parent star works.

It will also investigate how intense radiation and energetic particles being blasted out from the Sun and carried by the solar wind through the Solar System impact our home planet, to better understand and predict periods of stormy ‘space weather’. Solar storms have the potential to knock out power grids, disrupt air traffic and telecommunications, and endanger space-walking astronauts, for example.

“As humans, we have always been familiar with the importance of the Sun to life on Earth, observing it and investigating how it works in detail, but we have also long known it has the potential to disrupt everyday life should we be in the firing line of a powerful solar storm,” says Günther Hasinger, ESA Director of Science.

“By the end of our Solar Orbiter mission, we will know more about the hidden force responsible for the Sun’s changing behaviour and its influence on our home planet than ever before.”

"Solar Orbiter is going to do amazing things. Combined with the other recently launched NASA missions to study the Sun, we are gaining unprecedented new knowledge about our star," said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s associate administrator for Science at the agency’s headquarters in Washington DC. “Together with our European partners, we’re entering a new era of heliophysics that will transform the study of the Sun and help make astronauts safer as they travel on Artemis programme missions to the Moon."

At its closest, Solar Orbiter will face the Sun from within the orbit of Mercury, approximately 42 million kilometres from the solar surface. Cutting-edge heatshield technology will ensure the spacecraft’s scientific instruments are protected as the heatshield will endure temperatures of up to 500ºC – up to 13 times the heat experienced by satellites in Earth orbit.

“After some twenty years since inception, six years of construction, and more than a year of testing, together with our industrial partners we have established new high-temperature technologies and completed the challenge of building a spacecraft that is ready to face the Sun and study it up close,” adds César García Marirrodriga, ESA’s Solar Orbiter project manager.

New perspectives on our parent star

 

Solar Orbiter will take just under two years to reach its initial operational orbit, making use of gravity-assist flybys of Earth and Venus to enter a highly elliptical orbit around the Sun. The spacecraft will use the gravity of Venus to slingshot itself out of the ecliptic plane of the Solar System, which is home to the planetary orbits, and raise its orbit’s inclination to give us new views of the uncharted polar regions of our parent star.

The poles are out of view from Earth and to other spacecraft but scientists think they are key to understanding the Sun’s activity. Over the course of its planned five-year mission, Solar Orbiter will reach an inclination of 17º above and below the solar equator. The proposed extended mission would see it reach up to 33º inclination.

“Operating a spacecraft in close proximity of the Sun is an enormous challenge,” says Sylvain Lodiot, ESA’s Solar Orbiter spacecraft operations manager.

“Our team will have to ensure the continuous and accurate pointing of the heatshield to avoid the potential damage from the Sun’s radiation and thermal flux. At the same time, we will have to ensure a rapid and flexible response to the requests of the scientists to adapt their instruments’ operations according to the most recent observations of the Sun surface.” 

Solar Orbiter will use a combination of 10 in situ and remote-sensing instruments [RM3] to observe the turbulent solar surface, the Sun’s hot outer atmosphere and changes in the solar wind. Remote-sensing payloads will perform high-resolution imaging of the Sun's atmosphere – the corona – as well as the solar disc. In situinstruments will measure the solar wind and the solar magnetic field in the vicinity of the orbiter.

“The combination of remote-sensing instruments, which look at the Sun, and in situ measurements, which feel its power, will allow us to join the dots between what we see at the Sun and what we experience while soaking up the solar wind,” says Daniel Müller, ESA’s Solar Orbiter project scientist.

“This will provide unprecedented insight into how our parent star works in terms of its 11-year solar activity cycle, and how the Sun creates and controls the magnetic bubble – the heliosphere – in which our planet resides.”

We are all Solar Orbiters

 

Solar Orbiter will be one of two complementary spacecraft studying the Sun at close proximity: it will join NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, which is already engaged in its mission. 

Solar Orbiter and Parker Solar Probe have each been designed and placed into a unique orbit to accomplish their different, if complementary, goals. Parker Solar Probe ‘touches’ our star at much closer distances than Solar Orbiter, to study how the solar wind originates – but does not have cameras to view the Sun directly. Solar Orbiter flies at an ideal distance to achieve a comprehensive perspective of our star, including both remote images and in situ measurements, and will view the Sun’s polar regions for the first time.

Beyond accomplishing its own science goals, Solar Orbiter will provide contextual information to improve the understanding of Parker Solar Probe’s measurements. By working together in this way, the two spacecraft will collect complementary data sets that will allow more science to be distilled from the two missions than either could manage on its own.

“Solar Orbiter is the newest addition to the NASA Heliophysics System Observatory, joining Parker Solar Probe in an extraordinary adventure to unlock the biggest mysteries of the Sun and its extended atmosphere,” says Holly Gilbert, NASA Solar Orbiter Project Scientist.

“The powerful combination of these two missions and their awe-inspiring technology advancements will thrust our understanding to new heights.”

Solar Orbiter is set to build on the legacy of missions such as the joint ESA/NASA Ulysses and Solar and Heliophysics Observatory (SOHO), to give us the most advanced look yet at our star, and its influence on Earth.

About Solar Orbiter

 

Solar Orbiter is an ESA-led mission with strong NASA participation. The prime contractor is Airbus Defence and Space in Stevenage, UK. Solar Orbiter is the first ‘medium’-class mission implemented in the Cosmic Vision 2015-25 programme, the current planning cycle for ESA’s space science missions.

More information about Solar Orbiter: http://www.esa.int/solarorbiter
In-depth information about Solar Orbiter: http://sci.esa.int/solar-orbiter
Follow on social media: @ESASolarOrbiter, #SolarOrbiter and #WeAreAllSolarOrbiters

Multimedia

Solar Orbiter launch media kit: https://esamultimedia.esa.int/docs/science/solar_orbiter_media_kit.pdf

Images 

Images of Solar Orbiter  
ESA’s Photo Library for Professionals
Terms and conditions for using ESA images
For questions or more information related to ESA images, please contact directly spaceinimages@esa.int.

Videos

Videos of Solar Orbiter 
ESA’s Video Library for Professionals
Terms and conditions for using ESA videos
For questions or more information related to ESA videos, please contact directly spaceinvideos@esa.int.

About the European Space Agency

 

The European Space Agency (ESA) provides Europe’s gateway to space.

ESA is an intergovernmental organisation, created in 1975, with the mission to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space delivers benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.

ESA has 22 Member States: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Slovenia is an Associate Member.

ESA has established formal cooperation with seven Member States of the EU. Canada takes part in some ESA programmes under a Cooperation Agreement.

By coordinating the financial and intellectual resources of its members, ESA can undertake programmes and activities far beyond the scope of any single European country. It is working in particular with the EU on implementing the Galileo and Copernicus programmes as well as with Eumetsat for the development of meteorological missions.

ESA develops the launchers, spacecraft and ground facilities needed to keep Europe at the forefront of global space activities.

Today, it develops and launches satellites for Earth observation, navigation, telecommunications and astronomy, sends probes to the far reaches of the Solar System and cooperates in the human exploration of space. ESA also has a strong applications programme developing services in Earth observation, navigation and telecommunications.

Learn more about ESA at www.esa.int 

For further information:

Ninja Menning

Email: media@esa.int

Tel: +31 6 21 43 75 58

Bernhard von Weyhe

Tel: +49 170 916 61 75