Solar Orbiter

Solar Orbiter

Spacecraft· ESA / NASAactive

Solar Orbiter — images the Sun's poles from an inclined inner-system orbit.

Open in 3D viewSee Solar Orbiter in the live, interactive 3D map

Key facts

Current speed
67.3 km/s
Distance from Sun
0.295 AU
Status
Active
Launched
2020

Mission & specifications

Mission

Operator
ESA / NASA
Launched
February 10, 2020
Status
Active

Trajectory

Current speed
67.3 km/s
Distance from the Sun
0.295 AU
Distance from Earth
0.859 AU
Distance from Venus
0.446 AU

Mission

Solar Orbiter is a European-led mission, flown with NASA, designed to see the Sun as no spacecraft had before — including the first clear views of its poles. Launched on 10 February 2020, it combines two kinds of instrument that are rarely carried together: telescopes that image the Sun in detail, and in-situ sensors that taste the solar wind and magnetic fields flowing past the spacecraft. Crucially, it sees the Sun up close, swinging to within about a quarter of the Earth–Sun distance, peering from behind a heat shield that lets it look directly at the blazing disc. Its companion mission, the faster Parker Solar Probe, flies even closer but does not carry Sun-facing cameras; Solar Orbiter provides the pictures to go with Parker's measurements, and the two often coordinate. Solar Orbiter's masterstroke is its trajectory: by repeatedly using the gravity of Venus, it slowly tilts its orbit out of the flat plane in which the planets travel, climbing high enough to look down on the Sun's north and south poles. Those polar regions are largely unexplored yet hold the key to the Sun's magnetic cycle, which flips roughly every eleven years and governs solar activity. Already the mission has returned the closest images of the Sun ever taken, revealing a surface peppered with tiny flares nicknamed 'campfires', and is beginning the long-awaited survey of the solar poles.

  1. 2020Launch toward the SunLaunch

    The European-led mission sets off to image the Sun up close and view its poles.

  2. 2020First close perihelionMilestone

    Solar Orbiter returns the closest images of the Sun then taken, revealing tiny 'campfire' flares.

  3. 2020First Venus gravity assistFlyby

    A Venus flyby begins tilting the orbit out of the planets' plane toward the solar poles.

  4. 2025First views of the solar polesMilestone

    The climbing orbit delivers the first clear looks at the Sun's largely unexplored polar regions.

Images

Solar Orbiter facing the Sun — artist's impression, not a photograph
ESA/ATG medialab · Wikimedia Commons
Solar Orbiter Processing: Spacecraft Transfer at Astrotech
ESA/U. Ragnit · NASA Image Library

Images from open archives · credit shown per image