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The Solar Orbiter mission. Science overview
Williams, D.; Livi, S.; Peter, H. +32 more
Aims: Solar Orbiter, the first mission of ESA's Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 programme and a mission of international collaboration between ESA and NASA, will explore the Sun and heliosphere from close up and out of the ecliptic plane. It was launched on 10 February 2020 04:03 UTC from Cape Canaveral and aims to address key questions of solar and …
The Solar Orbiter EUI instrument: The Extreme Ultraviolet Imager
Vial, J. -C.; Zhang, X.; Peter, H. +146 more
Context. The Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) is part of the remote sensing instrument package of the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter mission that will explore the inner heliosphere and observe the Sun from vantage points close to the Sun and out of the ecliptic. Solar Orbiter will advance the "connection science" between solar activity and the heliosphere…
The Solar Orbiter Solar Wind Analyser (SWA) suite
André, N.; Fedorov, A.; Livi, S. +126 more
The Solar Orbiter mission seeks to make connections between the physical processes occurring at the Sun or in the solar corona and the nature of the solar wind created by those processes which is subsequently observed at the spacecraft. The mission also targets physical processes occurring in the solar wind itself during its journey from its sourc…
The Solar Orbiter magnetometer
Russell, C. T.; Forsyth, R.; Müller, D. +49 more
The magnetometer instrument on the Solar Orbiter mission is designed to measure the magnetic field local to the spacecraft continuously for the entire mission duration. The need to characterise not only the background magnetic field but also its variations on scales from far above to well below the proton gyroscale result in challenging requiremen…
The Spectrometer/Telescope for Imaging X-rays (STIX)
Krucker, Säm; Veronig, A. M.; Rodríguez-Pacheco, J. +86 more
Aims: The Spectrometer Telescope for Imaging X-rays (STIX) on Solar Orbiter is a hard X-ray imaging spectrometer, which covers the energy range from 4 to 150 keV. STIX observes hard X-ray bremsstrahlung emissions from solar flares and therefore provides diagnostics of the hottest (⪆10 MK) flare plasma while quantifying the location, spectrum,…
The Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager on Solar Orbiter
Schmidt, W.; Woch, J.; Solanki, S. K. +121 more
Aims: This paper describes the Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager on the Solar Orbiter mission (SO/PHI), the first magnetograph and helioseismology instrument to observe the Sun from outside the Sun-Earth line. It is the key instrument meant to address the top-level science question: How does the solar dynamo work and drive connections betw…
The Energetic Particle Detector. Energetic particle instrument suite for the Solar Orbiter mission
Kulkarni, S. R.; Lario, D.; Wang, L. +96 more
After decades of observations of solar energetic particles from space-based observatories, relevant questions on particle injection, transport, and acceleration remain open. To address these scientific topics, accurate measurements of the particle properties in the inner heliosphere are needed. In this paper we describe the Energetic Particle Dete…
Metis: the Solar Orbiter visible light and ultraviolet coronal imager
Telloni, Daniele; Susino, Roberto; Antonucci, Ester +100 more
Aims: Metis is the first solar coronagraph designed for a space mission and is capable of performing simultaneous imaging of the off-limb solar corona in both visible and UV light. The observations obtained with Metis aboard the Solar Orbiter ESA-NASA observatory will enable us to diagnose, with unprecedented temporal coverage and spatial res…
The Solar Orbiter Radio and Plasma Waves (RPW) instrument
Hellinger, P.; André, M.; Maksimovic, M. +103 more
The Radio and Plasma Waves (RPW) instrument on the ESA Solar Orbiter mission is described in this paper. This instrument is designed to measure in-situ magnetic and electric fields and waves from the continuous to a few hundreds of kHz. RPW will also observe solar radio emissions up to 16 MHz. The RPW instrument is of primary importance to the Sol…
The Solar Orbiter SPICE instrument. An extreme UV imaging spectrometer
Vial, J. -C.; Williams, D.; Peter, H. +87 more
Aims: The Spectral Imaging of the Coronal Environment (SPICE) instrument is a high-resolution imaging spectrometer operating at extreme ultraviolet wavelengths. In this paper, we present the concept, design, and pre-launch performance of this facility instrument on the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter mission.
Methods: The goal of this paper is to…