Solar Orbiter

Solar Orbiter is a Sun-observing probe developed by the European Space Agency with a contribution from NASA. It was launched on 10 February 2020 from Cape Canaveral in Florida and flies an eccentric orbit that carries it as close as about 60 solar radii, or 0.284 astronomical units, which is inside the perihelion of Mercury. Its purpose is to measure the inner heliosphere and the nascent solar wind and to observe the polar regions of the Sun, which are hard to see from Earth, and its orbital inclination is to be raised to about 24 degrees during the mission. The contract worth 319 million euros to build the orbiter was awarded in April 2012 to Astrium UK, part of the Astrium division that became Airbus Defence and Space. The nominal mission is planned to run to the end of 2026, with a possible extension to 2030.