The Solar Orbiter is a spacecraft launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) on February 10, 2020. The orbiter will study the Sun from an elliptical orbit around it, coming as close as 0.28 AU (41 million km; 26 million mi). From this unique vantage point, the Solar Orbiter will be able to make unprecedented measurements of the solar wind and magnetic field, providing new insights into the workings of our nearest star and how it affects the whole solar system.
The Solar Orbiter is equipped with ten state-of-the-art instruments, six of which are provided by ESA Member States, while four are led by Principal Investigators from US institutions. The scientific payload has a mass of almost 200 kg and requires approximately 600 Watts power. It consists of two in situ instrument suites for measuring particles and fields in the vicinity of the spacecraft, and four remote-sensing payloads to image different layers of the Sun’s atmosphere at ultraviolet, visible and infrared wavelengths.
The mission will provide answers to some key questions about our Sun: How does the solar wind originate? What drives eruptions on the Sun’s surface such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections? How do these dynamic events influence near-Earth space? And what makes our star tick – what powers its 11 year cycle of activity?
Solar Orbiter is part of ESA’s Cosmic Vision programme and its science is complementary to that NASA’s Parker Solar Probe mission. Together these two missions will give us an unprecedented view of our nearest star from inside and out.