8 December 2022

Solar Orbiter

SOLAR ORBITER

SOLAR ORBITER is a European Space Agency mission that allows us to make significant progress in our knowledge of the Sun and the inner Heliosphere by performing remote and in-situ measurements from an orbit that will go as far as 0.3 AU from the Sun and will deviate from the ecliptic plane. The LPC2E is in charge of the SCM magnetic field sensor.

Artist’s view of the Solar Orbiter mission. Credit ESA image.

You can follow our instrument on twitter or see the feed by clicking here. A good brochure on the Solar Orbiter mission is available here. Latest news:

  • September 12, 2020: release of the first public data on September 30
  • June 10, 2020: not so easy to keep this page up to date… SCM is nominally working, the cruising phase is starting and the scientific exploitation is underway! Write us for more information… Go Solar Orbiter !
  • February 17, 2020: The boom has been deployed and the first SCM data is being processed! Commissioning will start in the next few days
  • February 10, 2020: Successful launch! Deployment of the mast on which SCM is located to come
  • February 1, 2020: The launch is postponed to February 10, 5:03 French time (4:03 UT).

Launch of Solar Orbiter by the ATLAS V rocket on February 9, 2020.

The LPC2E is responsible for the fabrication and operation of the SCM sensor for the measurement of the high frequency magnetic field, within the RPW experiment led by the LESIA. SCM is a tri-axis “search-coil” sensor which will measure the magnetic field from 10Hz to 100kHz, as well as from 10kHz to 500kHz on one of the three axes.

Instrument RPW-SCM of Solar Orbiter. Credit ESA and LPC2E.

Official website of the mission: https://sci.esa.int/web/solar-orbiter/

Solar Orbiter page on the CNES website: https://solar-orbiter.cnes.fr/en/SOLO/index.htm

Contact at LPC2E: Matthieu.Kretzschmar@cnrs-orleans.fr