The Solar Orbiter probe is ready for launch. During the night of February 9 to 10, 2020, from the Kennedy Space Center of NASA (Florida), the Solar Orbiter probe will leave in the direction of the Sun for a mission that will make significant progress in our knowledge of the Sun and heliosphere. Its launch is scheduled for 5 h 03 min French time.
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A few hours before the launch of the probe Solar Orbiter from the European Space Agency, all the lights are green. This unique mission for Europe is about to take off for a journey around the Sun which aims to better understand how the Sun generate the solar wind and theheliosphere, this magnetic envelope – carrier of this wind – in which bathes and interacts all our Solar system. For this, Solar Orbiter will perform remote measurements and in situ since a orbit which will go up to 42 million kilometers from the Sun and will depart from the plan of the ecliptic. A distance to compare with the 150 million kilometers that separate the Sun from the Earth.
Its launch, aboard a launcher provided by the Nasa, as part of its participation in the program, is scheduled for Monday morning at 5 h 03 min French time, from the Kennedy Space Center of NASA (Florida). This launch will be broadcast live. Its mission will begin in November 2021, the time for the probe to reach its operational orbit. It should end in 2030 with the exhaustion of its fuel.
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Observations synchronized with Parker Solar Probe
During his mission, eight maneuvers ofgravitational assistance provided by Venus and one by Earth will be necessary for Solar Orbiter to reach the elliptical orbit on which the probe will carry out 22 orbits around the Sun with, passages closest to the Sun at only 42 million kilometers from its surface. From 2025, Solar Orbiter will gradually raise its inclination, which will reach 33 ° in 2029 and thus gain access to the observation of the regions of the Sun from higher latitudes, including the polar regions.
Finally, Solar Orbiter will work in tandem with the NASA solar probe, Parker Solar Probe, launched in August 2018. Solar Orbiter will be used to visualize the space environment in which the American probe will collect data at an even closer distance from the sun (from 7 to 9 million km).
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