Solar Orbiter Sends Back First Science Data

Solar Orbiter, a new collaborative mission between ESA and NASA to study our Sun, successfully launched on an Atlas V 411 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on February 10, 2020. One of its scientific instruments, the magnetometer (MAG), was the first instrument to switch on, less than 24 hours after launch, beaming back ‘housekeeping’ data showing it was alive and functioning.

The ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter mission will face the Sun from within the orbit of Mercury at its closest approach. Image credit: ESA / ATG Medialab.

The ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter mission will face the Sun from within the orbit of Mercury at its closest approach. Image credit: ESA / ATG Medialab.

Solar Orbiter will view some of the never-before-seen regions of the Sun, including the poles, and shed new light on some of the little understood aspects of the star’s activity, such as the formation of the solar wind.

The spacecraft will also provide data about the Sun’s magnetic field and how it arises.

Solar Orbiter carries ten scientific instruments, four of which measure properties of the environment around the spacecraft, especially electromagnetic characteristics of the solar wind, the stream of charged particles flowing from the Sun.

“It’s early days, but the data we have so far looks good,” said Dr. Helen O’Brien, instrument manager for the MAG from the Department of Physics at Imperial College London.

“We are delighted with the measurements and the performance of the instrument — it looks even better than we hoped it would. We’re really excited to be entering the science phase and confident it can carry out its mission well.”

“We measure magnetic fields thousands of times smaller than those we are familiar with on Earth,” said Professor Tim Horbury, principal investigator for the MAG from the Department of Physics at Imperial College London.

“Even currents in electrical wires make magnetic fields far larger than what we need to measure. That’s why our sensors are on a boom, to keep them away from all the electrical activity inside the spacecraft.”

“We spent a long time developing the instrument and it looked good in all the tests we did on the ground, but you never can tell until you get to space,” he added.

“We only have two hours of data so far, but it looks outstanding. The instrument has been well behaved and done all we asked of it. It looks like we will be able to do everything we need, and the instrument will be a key contributor to the science of the mission.”

Pristine magnetic field measurements taken in the solar wind by the MAG instrument on Solar Orbiter, more than a million km away from Earth. The plot shows a smooth rotation in the magnetic field, on top of which ride smaller waves. Capturing fine-scale waves such as these, which interact with solar wind particles, is a key target of the Solar Orbiter mission. Image credit: Imperial College London.

Pristine magnetic field measurements taken in the solar wind by the MAG instrument on Solar Orbiter, more than a million km away from Earth. The plot shows a smooth rotation in the magnetic field, on top of which ride smaller waves. Capturing fine-scale waves such as these, which interact with solar wind particles, is a key target of the Solar Orbiter mission. Image credit: Imperial College London.

The MAG instrument recorded data before, during and after the titanium/carbon-fiber boom’s deployment, allowing the scientists to understand the influence of the spacecraft on measurements in the space environment.

“The data we received shows how the magnetic field decreases from the vicinity of the spacecraft to where the instruments are actually deployed,” Professor Horbury said.

“This is an independent confirmation that the boom actually deployed and that the instruments will, indeed, provide accurate scientific measurements in the future.”

As the boom stretched out over an overall 30-minute period on February 12, the scientists could observe the level of the magnetic field decrease by about one order of magnitude.

While at the beginning they saw mostly the magnetic field of the spacecraft, at the end of the procedure, they got the first glimpse of the significantly weaker magnetic field in the surrounding environment.

“Measuring before, during, and after the boom deployment helps us to identify and characterize signals that are not linked to the solar wind, such as perturbations coming from the spacecraft platform and other instruments,” said Dr. Matthieu Kretzschmar, a researcher in the Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie de l’Environnement et de l’Espace.

“The spacecraft underwent extensive testing on ground to measure its magnetic properties in a special simulation facility, but we couldn’t fully test this aspect until now, in space, because the test equipment usually prevents us from reaching the needed very low level of magnetic field fluctuations.”

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