Solar missions Solar missions The Genesis spacecraft was the first ever attempt to collect a sample of solar wind, and the first sample return mission to return from beyond the orbit of the Moon. It was launched on August 8, 2001, and crash-landed on September 8, 2004 after a design flaw prevented the deployment of its drogue parachute. The crash contaminated many of the sample collectors, but subsequent processing was able to isolate useful samples, and as of April 2005 some of the mission's science objectives are expected to be achieved successfully. ...more on Wikipedia about "Genesis (spacecraft)"
The Helios deep space probes were launched in the mid 1970s by the Federal Republic of Germany using NASA launch vehicles. ...more on Wikipedia about "Helios probes"
Pioneer 6, 7, 8 and 9 were space probes in the Pioneer program. Together, they formed a series of solar-orbiting, spin-stabilized, solar-cell and battery-powered satellites designed to obtain measurements on a continuing basis of interplanetary phenomena from widely separated points in space. They were also known as Pioneer A, B, C and D. A fifth (Pioneer E) was lost in a launch accident. ...more on Wikipedia about "Pioneer 6, 7, 8 and 9"
The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) is a spacecraft that was launched in December 1995 to study the sun, and began regular scientific operations in May 1996. It is a joint project of the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA. Originally planned as a two-year mission, SOHO (as of 2005) continues to operate after over ten years in space, and in addition to its scientific mission it is currently the main source of near- real time solar data for space weather prediction. It is currently (with the Advanced Composition Explorer) one of two spacecraft in the vicinity of the Earth- Sun L1 point, a point of gravitational balance located about 0.99 AU from the Sun (and 0.01 AU from the Earth). ...more on Wikipedia about "Solar and Heliospheric Observatory"
The Solar Orbiter is a Sun-observing satellite, in development by the European Space Agency. It is to be launched on a Soyuz-ST Fregat 2-1B from the Guiana space centre in Kourou, French Guiana in October 2013. It will perform close observations of the polar regions of the Sun, which is difficult to do from Earth. The Solar Orbiter will make observations of the Sun from distances as close as 45 solar radii, or 0.21 AU. It is predicted that the images obtained will be up to ten times as sharp as any images that can be taken today. ...more on Wikipedia about "Solar Orbiter"
STEREO (Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory) is a solar observation mission to be launched in the second half of 2006. Two identical spacecraft will be launched into orbits that cause them to (respectively) pull further ahead and fall gradually behind the earth. This will enable stereoscopic imaging of the Sun and solar phenomena, such as Coronal Mass Ejections. ...more on Wikipedia about "STEREO"
Ulysses is an unmanned probe designed to study the Sun at all latitudes. The spacecraft, named for the Latin translation of " Odysseus", was launched in October 1990 from the Space Shuttle Discovery (mission STS-41) as a joint venture of NASA and the European Space Agency. The spacecraft is equipped with instruments to characterise fields, particles, and dust, and is powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG). It was originally code-named the International Solar Polar Mission. ...more on Wikipedia about "Ulysses probe"
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