Solar Orbiter
Full Name: Solar Orbiter
Phase: Under study
Launch Date: TBD
Mission Project Home Page: http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/area/index.cfm?fareaid=45
Program(s): Living With a Star
Solar Orbiter is a European Space Agency (ESA) mission to study the Sun from a distance closer than any spacecraft previously has, and will provide images and measurements in unprecedented resolution and detail.
Early in 2007, ESA and NASA combined ESA’s Solar Orbiter and NASA’s Solar Sentinels into a single joint collaboration or program named Heliophysical Explorers (HELEX).
Solar Orbiter will provide close-up views of the Sun's polar regions and its back-side and will tune its orbit to the direction of the Sun’s rotation as to allow the spacecraft to observe one specific area for much longer than currently possible. This will provide better insight on the evolution of sunspots, active regions, coronal holes and other solar features and phenomenon.
Solar Orbiter is a three-axis stabilized spacecraft equipped with instruments for both in-situ measurements and remote-sensing observations. It will be placed into an elliptical orbit about the Sun with perihelia ranging from 0.23 to 0.38 AU and aphelia from 0.73 to 0.88 AU. After an in-ecliptic phase of perihelion passes where it is nearly corotating with the Sun, Solar Orbiter will use multiple Venus gravity assist maneuvers to move the inclination of its orbit to progressively higher heliolatitudes, reaching ~34.2° by the end of its extended mission.
HELEX combines the capabilities of ESA’s Solar Orbiter (near-Sun in-situ plus remote-sensing observations from a partially co-rotating platform whose orbital inclination gradually rises from nearecliptic to heliographic midlatitudes) with those of NASA’s Sentinels (in-situ observations from multiple platforms arrayed at varying radial distances and azimuthal locations in the near-ecliptic plane) to investigate, characterize, and understand the Sun’s influence on the environment of the inner solar system.