On February 9, a small spacecraft embarked on an unprecedented journey through space – getting closer to the sun than any other man-made object had done before.
The Solar Orbiter has been traveling through space for almost a year, and on December 27, it makes the first resting place of its journey: a short flight from Venus that will fuel the second half of the spacecraft’s journey.
Here is the background – Solar Orbiter is a collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency. The purpose of the mission is to answer some of the unsolved yet fundamental questions scientists have about the sun. What drives solar wind? How does the sun’s magnetic field affect solar activity? And how does the star affect the solar system, including our own planet?
It will take the spacecraft about two years to reach its target point on the sun, with gravitational increases due to flies from Earth and Venus to undertake the journey.
What’s new – The Solar Orbiter on Sunday used the gravity of Venus to pump its brakes slightly and set it on the right path to the sun, the mission’s scientists announced on Twitter.
During the flight, the spacecraft collected valuable data about the most hellish planet in the Solar System, which scientists would like to dive into. According to the mission’s scientists, it will take several days to fully analyze the information, according to their Twitter updates.
The Solar Orbiter collected magnetometer, particle, plasma and radio data that could provide insight into how Venus interacts with solar winds.
What’s next – It is the first of Venus’ many flying planes, with the Solar Orbiter returning every few orbits around the sun to the small planet to orbit its path. The Solar Orbiter’s next Venus flight bee is scheduled for August 2021.
Earlier in June, the spacecraft made its first close approach to the Sun and reached as far as 48 million miles as close to the star surface, which is about half the distance between the Sun and the Earth.
By 2025, the Solar Orbiter will make its first pass through the sun with 17 degrees of inclination, which will increase to 33 degrees later by the end of the decade. It will see the sun’s polar regions directly.
The Solar Orbiter is designed to take the most accurate measurements of the sun’s solar wind to date, capturing for the first time a view of the sun’s magnetic poles. To do this, it uses completely new technology that enables it to withstand the scorching heat of the sun.
The spacecraft has ten scientific instruments on board. Six of them are remote sensing and capture images of the sun, while the remaining four instruments are in situ, measuring the surrounding environment around the spacecraft which consists of solar wind, plasma and particles.
The Solar Orbiter will move in an elliptical orbit around the Sun, completing one orbit every 168 days.
Eventually it will move beyond the boundaries of the solar system and look down at the sun and image the star from high altitude. From its unique vantage point, the rig is ready to capture the first images of the solar polar regions, giving scientists better insight into how the sun’s magnetic field affects solar activity.