Solar Orbiter

Solar Orbiter is an ESA-led mission with strong NASA participation, which will provide close-up, high-latitude observations of the Sun. On 10 February 2020, at 05:03 CET, it was successfuly launched from Cape Canaveral aboard an Atlas V rocket.

Flying a novel trajectory, with partial Sun-spacecraft corotation, Solar Orbiter will investigate in-situ plasma properties of the near solar heliosphere and observe the Sun's magnetized atmosphere and polar regions.

There are ten instruments on board. IWF built the digital processing unit (DPU) for the Radio and Plasma Waves instrument (RPW) and has calibrated the RPW antennas, using numerical analysis and anechoic chamber measurements. Furthermore, the institute has contributed to the magnetometer.

More information about Solar Orbiter is found at ESA.