Tereza Pultarova: Hello and welcome to the European Space
Agency's press briefing on the occasion of the release of the
first images from Solar Orbiter. Solar orbiter is a new
Sun-observing mission and collaboration between ESA and
NASA that was designed and built to take the closest-ever images
of the Sun. My name is Tereza Pultarova. I'm a science writer
at ESA and I will be your host today. Joining me online mostly
from their homes, because we are still in this socially distance
COVID-19 situation are six amazing guests who are among the
key people who made this mission possible, who brought it to life
and who will be responsible for the cutting edge science that
it's going to deliver which will which will really transform our
understanding of the processes on the Sun and how it influences
the entire solar system. My first guest is Daniel Muller,
who is either solar or better project scientist, scientist.
Hello, Daniel.
Daniel Müller: Hello, Tereza.
Tereza Pultarova: Our second guest is Holly Gilbert, who is
the director of the Heliophysics science division at NASA's
Goddard Space Flight Center, and also solar orbiter Project
Scientist at NASA. Hello Holly
Holly Gilbert: Hello.
Tereza Pultarova: Our third guest is David Berghmans of the
Royal Observatory of Belgium. And David is the principal
investigator of the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager, or EUI,
which is one of the six remote-sensing instruments, the
telescopes and solar orbiter. Hello David.
David Berghmans: Good afternoon, Tereza.
Tereza Pultarova: Our fourth guest is Sami Solanki, the
director of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System
Research in Germany and principal investigator of the
Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager, which is another really
interesting telescope that Solar Orbiter carries. Hello Sami.
Sami Solanki: Hello Tereza
Tereza Pultarova: Next we have Chris Owen of the University
College, London's Mullard Space Science Laboratory. And Chris is
the principal investigator of the Solar Wind Analyzer which is
one of the four in situ instruments on Solar Orbiter and
these instruments don't take images, but measure the
properties of the environment around the spacecraft. Hello,
Chris.
Chris Owen: Good afternoon everyone.
Tereza Pultarova: And last but not least, is José Luis Pellón
who is solar orbital spacecraft operations manager at the
European Space Operations Center in Darmstadt, Germany. Hello,
José.
José Luis Pellón Bailón: Hello everybody.
Tereza Pultarova: Before we start, let me inform the
journalists who are hopefully watching us right now. If you
have any questions, please send them to media at ESA dot IT, and
at the end of this briefing, we will try to answer as many
questions as possible. Again, the email address is media at
ESA dot IT. You can also join the conversation on Twitter
using the hashtag #thesunupclose. Again, the
hashtag is #thesunupclose. And let's, let's start with the
questions. Daniel, I said at the beginning one of the tasks of
solar orbiter is to take the closest images of the Sun. The
images that we are going to see today--are they already the
closest images?
Daniel Müller: Yes Tereza. Indeed, we've never been closer
to the Sun with a camera. And this is just the beginning of
the long epic journey of solar orbiter, which will take us even
closer to the sun in less than two years time. As far as taking
high resolution images goes, there are two options: getting
closer to the object of interest, or building a bigger
telescope. That's a little bit like going on an expedition. You
either get closer to the elephant or you use a bigger
camera. So the world's largest solar telescope to date is the
Inouye solar telescope in Hawaii, which has a diameter of
four meters. But Ground-based telescopes have one major
drawback, and that is the fact that Earth's atmosphere is
blocking large parts of the spectrum of sunlight. So if you
want to observe the sun in ultraviolet light and x-rays as
we want, we need to go into space. And solar orbiter is
using what we call gravity-assist maneuvers or
slingshot maneuvers at the planet Venus and Earth to get
closer to the Sun. And we do this by harnessing the
gravitational field of the planets to slow down our
spacecraft that makes it fall towards the Sun just a little
more rather than just flying around it.
Tereza Pultarova: Can you just tell us that images that we are
going to see today, when were they taken and how far was solar
orbiter from the sun at that moment and how it compares to
the distance from Earth and perhaps the ultimate distance of
solar orbiter.
Daniel Müller: The images that we are going to see soon were
taken around the time of our first close approach to the sun,
which was at 77 million kilometers, which is just over
half the distance between Sun and Earth. And so this is not
quite as close as we will eventually get, our closest
approach will be just over a quarter of the distance between
the Sun and Earth. And we will reach that in about two years
time.
Tereza Pultarova: And my next question is for Holly: Holly,
solar orbiter, as we said, is taking the closest images of the
sun but many people know that NASA's Parker Solar Probe is
actually flying much closer to the sun than solar orbiter. Can
you explain to us why Parker Solar Probe is not taking
images?
Holly Gilbert: Indeed, Parker Solar Probe is going closer to
the sun--much closer within nine solar radii. But the environment
that close is extremely harsh. And so they don't have many
cameras. They have one camera that's not facing the sun, it's
facing away so that it can watch the solar wind. But cameras
can't go that close. So solar orbiter is really the limit
where the cameras can take images of the sun itself.
Tereza Pultarova: Can you compare the environment in which
Parker Solar Probe is and that of solar orbiter?
Holly Gilbert: Well, if you imagine many, many, many times
the sun at the intensity and as you get closer and closer to the
sun, solar orbiter isn't as close as Parker and each time
you get closer, the more intense it gets. And so the environment
just gets too harsh as you get that close to the sun.
Tereza Pultarova: There are many other spacecraft studying the
sun and many of them are actually orbiting the Earth and
they're also as Daniel already mentioned, Many ground-based
telescopes, which provide really great resolution, what is the
advantage of having a mission like solar orbiter in this mix,
and what is the unique contribution of solar orbiter to
solar science?
Holly Gilbert: in order to understand how the sun really
creates that plasma bubble and how it modulates the environment
in the solar system, we need many, many observations. And so
we often combine observations from different observatories,
including ground observatories. But solar orbiter in this mix
offers a couple of very unique aspects. One is its orbit. It
will eventually get out of the ecliptic -- as it's getting
closer to the sun, it will get out of the ecliptic, which is
the plane that the planets all rotate around the sun in. So up
to now, we've only been able to really image that part of the
Sun from the Earth's perspective. But we're going to
be able to take images and pictures of the polar regions of
the sun for the very first time and this is extremely exciting,
and also the powerful suite of instruments that solar orbiter
offers. It's a combination of the ones that take images, the
remote sensing, and the ones that are sampling the plasma,
the in situ data. And so that combination really allows us to
make links and connections to what's happening on the sun and
where what's happening at the spacecraft.
Tereza Pultarova: Thank you. Just so the Orbiter Mission had
a very unusual start to its operations. Solar orbiter was
launched on the 10th of February this year. Less than a month
later it became clear that the new Coronavirus closing the
COVID-19 disease was spreading in Europe. ESA took a very early
action at the time and by mid-March most staff members
were working from home. It is no exaggeration to say that Solar
orbiter became the first spacecraft in ESA's history that
has been mostly commissioned from people's homes. Jose, my
next question is for you. The early months in the orbital life
of any mission are probably the most challenging. What was going
through your head when the COVID-19 situation started
unfolding in the middle of the commissioning?
José Luis Pellón Bailón: When you are right, we're very
worried. As you said the solar orbiter was launched on the 10th
of February. And already towards the end of February, we were
getting instructions from our management with respect to the
visitors that will be allowed to enter the ESA control center in
Germany, our site. So, traditionally, commissioning is
performed with the instrument teams together with us here in
the control center. And we have started to realize that if the
pandemic would evolve, and it has unfortunately evolved, this
would not be possible. So, we worried, travel restriction were
imposed also to the different countries where the research
institute that manage the instruments onboard solid
orbiter are located. So we have to plan another way of
performing commissioning and it was from home partially also on
site keeping severe restrictions.
Tereza Pultarova: So can you describe to us exactly how it
how you dealt with the situation?
José Luis Pellón Bailón: Well, yes, we have to stop for almost
10 days during March. we have to replan everything. We had
started the commissioning, in operation our way with the teams
here. But when the lockdown came to reality, we have to replan
everything. So one of the biggest restriction was that
only two engineers could be in the control room at the same
time keeping distance. And of course the instrument teams were
in their home countries, they had to do everything remote via
teleconference, showing them what we could see in our control
screens. So it was difficult but it has worked pretty well, I
think better than we expected, think that things are happy, we
are happy. And we managed to bring the commission into a
successful end
Tereza Pultarova: That's fantastic, thank you. Chris: I
know that the work of the solar wind analyzer team was quite
badly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and restrictions. Can
you tell us how was the situation for you?
Chris Owen: Yes, I guess like the like everybody else in the
world the last few months have been unexpectedly challenging.
And in particular, our set of sensors all use very high
voltages to make their measurements and we would
normally get those turned on after waiting for several weeks
after launch, in order to allow all the atmospheric pockets of
air that might be trapped in the in the instrument to get out. So
actually, by the time we were ready to go and turn our
instrument on, we were pretty much up against the the set of
lockdowns. And by the time we came out of the the ESOC
lockdown, and we're ready to go, we're also locked out of our own
labs. So we've had to set up a system where we're doing this
very delicate operation where we would go to something try to
ramp up to something like 30,000 volts, steps of 25 volts at a
time, and you know at each step, looking very carefully at the
data coming back to make sure that nothing had gone wrong. A
very delicate operation needed to be done from our home. So we
had like multiple WebExs is running where we had one
connection to the spacecraft operator. We had another one to
members of the team who were all looking at the data that Jose
Luis talked about had a very narrow field of view from a
webcam. ESOC looking at the very most important parts of the
data, and then trying to download the data and plot it on
the fly as much as we can to make sure it was safe. But that
meant that we weren't you know, we were sending out a risky
command and having to wait a few minutes to see the result which
was pretty stressful. But, but as Jose Luis says, In the end,
it was it was good and successful. So yeah, we're
happy.
Tereza Pultarova: Sami How was the experience for the fitting?
Sami Solanki: Yes. So in the beginning, things started very
normally then the pandemic hit, and everything was shut down
actually the instruments on the spacecraft, they were more or
less put on standby and we were really worried at that point. As
the spacecraft is hurtling away from the earth, and we cannot
continue with the conditioning and have no idea what our
instrument is like. Thanks to you know, a lot of work and the
good ideas coming from the staff at ESOC, we managed to
commissioning again. And it was challenging and, it was indeed
quite challenging because we had to have teams, you know, complex
teams in three countries, many different Institutes, and we had
to make sure that we can all communicate up to 20 people all
doing it online instead of in one big room. But we managed to
do that.
Tereza Pultarova: Thank you,
Sami Solanki: and finally it worked.
Tereza Pultarova: Fantastic. Let's have a look at the images
because I think that's what everybody's waiting for. David,
the extreme ultraviolet imager or EUI, that's one of the six
telescopes aboard solar orbiter. Can you just quickly explain to
us what does this instrument enable you to do?
Daniel Müller: Okay, so the thing is that Solar orbiter will
fly four times closer to the sun than the Earth. And that implies
that a scene from solar orbiter the solar disk will be 16 times
bigger. So whenever something happens on that big solar disk
into space, EUI will be watching and imaging and monitoring all
this phenomena from the smallest to the biggest scales.
Tereza Pultarova: How does it compare, how does it compare to
similar instruments that have been used before?
David Berghmans: So EUI is sort of the the last in an evolution.
There is always new technology coming in. But I think what the
revolutionary aspects of EUI is what, what what Daniel already
said, it's really bringing it closer to the elephant, by by
looking from close by, we get so much sharper images. And not
only will be they'll be get closer images, but we will see
from a non-Earth perspective, that is we will look down on the
poles, something we have never done before.
Tereza Pultarova: The images that we're going to see in just
very few short moments were obtained at the end of the so
called commissioning phase. And that's the early period of
technical validation. Solar orbiter is not yet in its full
science mode. So it was essentially the first
opportunity to properly test all these instruments. What did you
expect from those images? And when they finally started
coming, what was your impression?
David Berghmans: To be honest, I didn't dare to expect
anything--the last months of the development of EUI had been
extremely stressful with our mirrors taking apart in the last
moment and re-gluing everything and software being changed in
the last minute. So it was kind of a battle to get it all
together. And then when the first images came in the first
thought was, this is not possible it cannot be that good.
So it was really much better than what we perhaps not
expected, but what we dared to hope for.
Tereza Pultarova: So hopefully now everybody should see a video
clip, which is showing a sequence of videos and images
from EUI. David, can you explain to us what is it that we can see
in this sequence?
David Berghmans: We see different Solar instruments
being displayed here -- this is not EUI but it's its methods and
the SolarHI instruments showing the far-Corona. If we can play
back this video to the beginning and we'll see EUI? No?
Tereza Pultarova: Anyway, let's, let's have a let's that kind of
focusing on the really interesting bit. I understand we
might be having a little bit of technical problems when when we
see the detailed images of the Sun's surface. There is
something really interesting that caught your eye when you
first saw them, could you explain this a little bit?
What's that, that we can see that and why is it interesting?
David Berghmans: Right, so the very first high resolution
images that we took, were not pointing anywhere specifically,
we are seeing a small disk part of the solar disk here of the
corona, which we essentially call the quiet corona. Quiet,
meaning that nothing is supposed to happen here. But then when
you look at it at high resolution, it's amazing, in the
smallest details, how much stuff is going on there. We couldn't
believe this when when we first saw this, and we started giving
it crazy names like campfires and dark fibrils and ghosts and
whatever we saw. So there is so much new small phenomena going
on on the smaller scale that we are like starting a new
vocabulary to give it all names. And many of those things have
been seen before at bigger scales. But nevertheless, this
small scales in the quiet corona.
Tereza Pultarova: Thank you. Daniel: What do solar scientists
know about these little campfires, these little
phenomena and how much has been known? How much have they been
observed before?
Daniel Müller: Well, Teresa, like David was saying to all
knowledge, many of these particular features have not
been observed before at this scale. These are clearly just
the first test images so it's too early to draw any scientific
conclusions. But our conjecture is that these campfires and
ghosts related to changes in the Sun's magnetic field, a process
that is known as magnetic reconnection. So we believe that
even though it's the quiet sun, and they are only very small
scale magnetic fields, these field lines do get tangled and
get under stress and like rubber bands they can eventually tear
and then reconfigure into new configurations and that that
tearing process can release energy, vast quantities, and
that would then heat the plasma locally to temperatures of more
than a million degrees, which is what we see in any case in the
EUI images.
Tereza Pultarova: I understand that these campfires could be
involved in one in one big solar science mystery and that is the
heating of the corona. Can you explain what that is? Why is it
a mystery and how these campfires could be connected to
that?
Daniel Müller: The fact that the sun's corona is so hot is really
been a mystery for many, many years, it's a little
counterintuitive, because you would think if you have a body
that's very hot at the center and relatively cool at the
surface, it would be even cooler, the further you go away.
But on the contrary, for the sun, we have a hot core
relatively cool surface of just about five and a half thousand
degrees surrounded by a super hot atmosphere of more than a
million degrees. It's as if you would light fire, and as you
move further away from the fire, it doesn't get cooler but in
fact, it really starts to burn you when you're really far away.
So that is really the the peculiar thing about the sun's
corona and the corona of other stars as well. There have been
multiple theories put forward to account for that, including
shockwaves and other phenomena. Most of them though, are related
to changes in the sun's magnetic field. And there's a theory put
forward by a great U.S. physicist Eugene Parker, after
whom the NASA Parker Solar Probe has been named, who conjectured
that if you should have a vast number of tiny flares, so
similar to the flares that we've observed on bigger scales, but
just a lot smaller all the time in the sun, that might account
for an omnipresent heating mechanism that could make the
corona hot. So while we clearly do not know yet, if what we see
is in any way related to that theory, there is a possibility
that what we see here, let's say the tiny cousins of the solar
flares that we already know, and they produce heat on a very
different scale, but because of the multitude that could
contribute significantly to heating the solar corona.
Tereza Pultarova: Thank you very much. Holly, the images that we
are seeing here are just now there, as we said, only the
first images and seeing them, what does it suggest about the
future potential of the solar Orbiter Mission?
Holly Gilbert: Yeah, I think most importantly, it
demonstrates that we are going to be able to accomplish our
solar objectives of solar orbiter, we are very excited
that everything is working. And it also confirms the importance
of looking at different physical scales. If we've already made
some discoveries in just the first light images, just imagine
what we're going to find when we get closer to the sun, and when
we get out of the ecliptic. Very exciting.
Tereza Pultarova: We mentioned before that one of the goals is
to look at the poles. So what do you hope to see there on the
poles? And what do you think to learn from some orbiter images
on the poles?
Holly Gilbert: Well, we don't know what we'll see yet. And
it's very difficult to get out of the ecliptic because it takes
a lot of energy. And so by imaging the poles, we're looking
forward to seeing the magnetic field and the different flows
there. And that's really important for understanding the
global magnetic field of the sun. Those polar regions are
important. And so we'll be able to model better the global
magnetic field, how its interacting with itself, and how
it's driving space weather. So it's going to be really, really
exciting to see what those poles offer and determine a little bit
more understanding about how the sun operates and how it drives
ts heliosphere.
Tereza Pultarova: Thank you. Sami, let's have a look at PHI.
Can you explain to us what does PHI enable you to do and why is
it unique?
Sami Solanki: Yes, gladly. So fee is a magnetograph. That
means it is an instrument which measures the magnetic field of
the Sun close to its surface. At the same time, it also measures
velocities close to the surface of the sun, which include the
oscillations--the sun as a whole is oscillating all the time, and
with these we can peer into the sun, look at the interior. It's
unique in the sense that first of all, no magnetograph has ever
been as close to the sun has as PHI has and that has its
advantages, obviously. And secondly, it's the first
magnetograph that's going to look or is now already looking
at the sun from a different direction than you can from the
earth. And so we are also seeing parts of the Sun which are
otherwise not visible. And finally, PHI is unique because
it will be the first instrument to look at the sun from outside
the ecliptic. And that's where it will really come into it. So
Tereza Pultarova: We are now at the so called solar minimum, the
sun is very quiet, what does it mean for the images that you are
able to obtain?
Sami Solanki: So the quiet sun means that it has very little
magnetic field compared to what it will hopefully have in a few
years time. That means that this magnetic field is also sort of
randomly distributed over most of the sun and small features.
The images sort of look bland, not very exciting, but that will
change as the sun becomes more active.
Tereza Pultarova: I understand that in spite of that you were
able to have some interesting like, firsts, can you tell us
about this?
Sami Solanki: Yes, as I said PHI is the first instrument or the
first Magnetograph to look at the sun from the side, so to
say. We still haven't reached the far side of the sun, but at
least from the side, and we have seen in our full disk
Magnetograms an active region, which is totally invisible from
the Earth. And that's exciting because we know that the
magnetic field is a kind of holistic feature of the sun. It
threads through the atmosphere and connects very different
parts of the sun with each other. But so far, we've only
seen one side of the sun and now we're starting to see the whole
beast.
Tereza Pultarova: We know that these active regions can create
solar eruptions, and these solar eruptions can then create solar
weather events on Earth when they deserve the magnetosphere
and and it can affect satellites. It can affect the
power grids and telecommunications,
telecommunication network. Do you expect solar orbiter can
help us understand space weather better or even prevent these
disruptions in the future.
Sami Solanki: I don't think we will be able to prevent
them--the sun is just much too powerful for that. But what we
hope at some point is to be able to make predictions for that the
first thing that is missing is a proper understanding of what
causes these eruptions. How does the change of the magnetic field
we know that the magnetic field is causing it but we don't know
how the magnetic field has to develop and change to lead up to
such an eruption and solar orbiter by providing us a very
different view than is possible from Earth will definitely be a
big help to reach this understanding.
Tereza Pultarova: Thank you. Chris, Solar orbiter's
instruments were designed to essentially work together the
remote-sensing cameras, the telescopes, with the institute
instruments on the spacecraft to unlock the mysteries like the
coronal heating, like space weather. What exactly can in
situ instrument teams such as the solar wind analyzer team
learn from the images that we have seen today and how these
images help you interpret your data? What questions will you be
able to answer?
Chris Owen: Yeah, that's right. So the I mean, most of the the
big headline goals the novel parts of the mission rely on us
all working together, and being able to link the the
measurements or the the images of the dynamics of the on the
sun, with what is coming out past a spacecraft. And you know,
so to do that, in that sense, these these images are one end
of the system that we that will provide us knowledge about the
the specific sources of the solar wind that we measure at
the spacecraft and provide the kind of diagnostics that you're
seeing here on the screen in this in this information
leaflet, it just shows how, for example, The SPICE instrument is
able to focus in on the on, say a candidate source region and
return diagnostics about the temperature. Sami talked about
how his instrument will will produce information about the
magnetic field, we can get information about the outflows
and and in particular, here we can see the graph shows the
relative composition of the plasma in the in those source
regions and so that that's a key part but for making the link
link out and understanding the dynamics and the physics of
what's going on in the atmosphere.
Tereza Pultarova: So you will see the differences between the
different regions, do I understand correctly?
Chris Owen: Yeah, that's right. So yeah, that so so different
parts, whether it's a coronal hole or an active region will
will have a different signature in all of these, these phenomena
and we see fast solar wind and slow solar wind coming out past
past a spacecraft that's detected by the in situ
instruments and as I say that the key to making the science
leaps are about making those links between the two sets of
measurement.
Tereza Pultarova: I also understand that the solar wind
analyzer made some really unique measurements during this first
close approach to the sun. Can you tell us a little bit about
that?
Unknown: Yeah, so actually, so, that also relates to to to what
I just said and the problems at the lower end. So, this is a
good example of the link. And in particular one of the sensors on
in our instrument is going to make the first dedicated
measurements of the heavy ions component in the solar wind. So
most of the solar wind is made up of protons and helium
particles and electrons to balance the charge, but it
contains these rather exotic heavy heavy particles of
different charge states. So the the carbon the oxygen, the iron,
etc. and our instrument is making the first measurements of
these what you see on the screen here is in the blobs are
representative of each particle that enters the instrument and
we categorize it by what is what's its energy, its its, its
charge and its mass, and so we can get it again, a kind of a
fingerprint of the of the composition of the, of the Solar
wind passing the spacecraft, which is a direct comparison to
the SPICE measurements that were in the in the last plot. And
that really enables us to establish what that link is and
then we can bring the full power of the full set of 10
instruments to the problem and understand some of the key
issues like the coronal heating problem or the or the
acceleration of the solar wind.
Tereza Pultarova: Thank you. Daniel, we have seen so far
images from two of the six remote-sensing instruments and
couldn't invite everybody unfortunately to talk in this
press conference. From your perspective, what were the other
highlights of this first imaging campaign? What are the
interesting things that you learn?
Daniel Müller: One of the real highlight for me Tereza was
getting the grand perspective of the sun and heliosphere for the
first time. We have these two coronagraphs on board one is
called Metis which images the corona around the sun at a
distance of several solar radio and then we have the Heliosperic
Imager called SoloHI , which looks sideways over the edge of
our heat shield and images, the wider space around the sun. So
that impressed me really a lot to see those first images, even
though they're still rough around the edges. Because the
night we launched, it struck me that solar orbit would go and
explore faraway parts of the solar system. And like Sami was
saying earlier, see the sun from a completely different
perspective. And when I first combined the first light image
of SoloHI, with images of the sun itself, it was really as if
the spacecraft had had send us a postcard from its journey.
Tereza Pultarova: It's great. Holly, are there any
opportunities for cooperation between solar orbiter and the
Parker Solar Probe?
Holly Gilbert: Absolutely. And in fact, before we even
launched, we were working with that team to make sure that we
were planning to take advantage of the different conjunctions of
the two spacecraft. For instance, Parker Solar Probe,
when it's very close to the sun and solar orbiter can image the
context the environment around It and that provides a lot of
information about what Parker Solar Probe is sampling. And
some other instruments on Parker are also the same instruments
are measuring the same thing on solar orbiter. And so there's
other conjunctions where we can measure something at Parker and
measure it also at solar orbiter and again, link the two and see
how that plasma has evolved, if at all. So it's it's very
exciting. It's a very good synergy between the two
missions.
Tereza Pultarova: Thank you. Jose, we mentioned that solar
orbiter is not yet in its full science phase. Could you just
explain briefly the difference between these various phases?
José Luis Pellón Bailón: Well, yes, now that the commissioning
has finished, we are doing our first steps in the so called the
cruise phase. The cruise phase will bring solar orbiter into
the final science mission. Cruise phase the in situ
instrument will be performing science and remote-sensing
instruments will be performing also science during dedicated
remote-sensing check out windows.
Tereza Pultarova: Can you explain why does it take so long
for the spacecraft to get to the required orbit?
José Luis Pellón Bailón: Well, yes, I mean given the mass of
the spacecraft and the performance of the launcher the
initial orbit where the rocket index solar orbiter has to be
changed in order to end up in the in the final science orbit.
Orbits in a space can be changed either by performing maneuvers
which would imply consuming huge amounts of propellant or
performing planetary flybys and have opted for the planetary
flybys and solar winter is doing a tour of planets doing, as
Daniel said before slingshot or gravity assists maneuvers around
Venus and Earth in order to arrive to the science orbit.
Tereza Pultarova: Thank you. Daniel, what is next for solar
orbiter?
Daniel Müller: Well, as you have explained earlier, we have now
embarked on what we call the cruise phase, I should really
say that for the in situ instruments that measure the
solar wind, the magnetic field and the heliosphere, it's
already full on science. So Chris will surely talk about
that later as well. In addition to that, we will be using these
planetary flybys twice at Venus and once at Earth to tweak our
orbit over the next year and a half. We'll also use different
let's say thermal configurations when we are far away from the
sun or closer to the sun to check how the telescopes perform
when they are warmer or cooler in temperature on the onboard
the spacecraft. And this I'm sure there's one and a half
years will really fly by in no time and then in November 2021
we'll do a last swing by at Earth at an altitude of just 440
kilometers, so really close to home we should be able to see it
with small telescopes, and then we are on our way and then in
March 2022 we will have the first really close flyby, when
we are roughly at 30% of the distance between Sun and Earth.
So so that is fantastic. And then over the next few years
while we are in this five to six month orbit, where we have very
high resolution images every couple of months, we will
gradually incline our orbit to see the polar regions for the
first time. So that will be the last, let's say change of
perspective. And it's definitely worth waiting for because we
really believe this will give us a lot of new insight into the
sun's activity cycle. So what ultimately drives these 11 year
periodic changes in the magnetic field activity of the sun.
Tereza Pultarova: So when do we expect the next scientific
results, the next images?
Daniel Müller: Well, the next images will probably be taken at
the next let's say, intermediate perihelion, roughly short,
little below 0 point five AU, so it's little closer than the
images we've seen now. We'll see that during the cruise phase,
and then in March 2022, we'll get into the full blown Science
phase with unprecedented resolution. So this will be the
main milestone to look out for.
Tereza Pultarova: Thank you. And Chris, can you tell us what's
next for the in situ instruments?
Chris Owen: Well, yes, as Daniel said, in fact, those of us that
are associated with a an in situ instrument are lucky enough to
benefit from the fact that there's enough telemetry
bandwidth for us to be turned on and operating pretty much
continuously through the cruise phase and the entire mission. So
the crews phase already started on June the 15th. So we are the
four instruments in the in situ group are returning data as we
speak, and we will be using that together long term data sets on
the nature of the solar wind. And there are lots of
interesting physical things, you know, fundamental physical
things from an plasma and astrophysical point of view,
that go on in the solar wind itself and a big community of
scientists will be eagerly looking forward to that data to
study things like turbulence and shocks and various plasma
instabilities. And as well also to address some of the sort of
the space weather aspects of how the sun affects the earth. So we
will be detecting coronal mass ejections and solar energetic
particles, etc. So
Tereza Pultarova: I know that they're also we have mentioned
we have mentioned the Parker Solar Probe, but I understand
that also some interesting opportunities to work together
with BepiColombo, which is another is a missions that is
now heading towards.
Chris Owen: Yes, Yes, for sure. So, I mean, Holly,
Tereza Pultarova: Can you tell us a little bit about these
cooperation opportunities?
Chris Owen: Yeah. So So Holly talked about Parker Solar Probe.
And, and we are certainly looking over the horizon for
those alignments where we will make sure we take the best
measurements we can. But you know, later on in the middle of
next year, there's a very close meeting of BepiColombo and solar
orbiter, so we'll be able to make your point measurements of
say CMEs. And now, there's some limitations about only having
measurements at one point. So almost every opportunity that we
can grab to, to make multi point measurements when the
spacecraft, you know, getting to a useful alignment will be
taking that over the next 18 months before we we start to get
into the full science face. So lots of science to do. In the
meantime,
Tereza Pultarova: I just explained you said CME. So maybe
some of our viewers don't understand, it's coronal mass
ejections, and they spread from the sun and you can measure them
at various points as they sort of like evolve.
Chris Owen: We see them coming, we see them coming out from the
sun in the images and we detect them in interplanetary space and
when they when they hit the Earth system, they can cause
quite a lot of disruptions was is kind of important space
weather phenomena to understand better and that will certainly
contribute to that.
Tereza Pultarova: And I understand it's quite unique to
have this network of spacecraft measuring it like this is
Chris Owen: Certainly I mean it's a it's a fantastic fleet to
have now for the inner heliosphere. I mean, I guess
we've always looked for these kind of opportunities. But yes,
it's a kind of a rich time at the moment for this this kind of
science.
Tereza Pultarova: Thank you. Sami, David, the images from EUI
and PHI that we have seen today were taken from almost twice the
distance that Solar orbiter is meant to operate once in its
science phase. And so I have two questions for both of you. How
much better will the images get? And what are you looking forward
to see? So I wonder, David, do you want to go first?
David Berghmans: Yes. So obviously, like you say, if we
fly twice closer, or our images will get twice sharper, but it's
it's going to be much better than that, I believe. You have
to remember that the current data that we are showing today
are merely byproducts of technical tests that we were
doing. These images are not optimized yet or the instruments
are not fully configured yet. So while we improve on that, I
expect also that will improve the images by at least a factor
of two in scontrast in sharpness in all sorts of ways. And so I'm
I'm also at the spacecraft level by the way, steering a
spacecraft is a complicated business and so also there are
optimizations are ongoing that will improve the image quality.
Now, what I'm looking forward to is we have presented today
perhaps the first evidence of of what Daniel explains the nano
flare theory with the campfires. But there are competing theories
out there based on on waves traveling through the solar
corona and we know that with the present instruments we should be
able to observe and so on, I'm much looking forward to also
collect evidence for the competing theories and then
evaluate which theories is the most prominent one or the most
correct one, perhaps, in which circumstances and that's going
to be very exciting, I believe.
Tereza Pultarova: Sami, from your perspective.
Sami Solanki: So indeed, I think I can echo David's words, our
instrument as well is not yet in the state where we hope it will
be in one and a half years time when we get into the science
phase. And so the data that we are seeing now, although
optically we can already say that the instrument is really
far better than we had dare to hope, but still, the data will
improve and then they will get better again because it will
have much higher resolution by being closer to the sun. But the
thing I'm really looking forward to is the phase when solar
orbiter goes out of the ecliptic and looks down at the poles. The
Poles are terra incognita. It's like, you know, the earth 150
years ago, nobody had been at the poles. So there will be a
lot of new things to learn there. And one of the things
which excites me the most is, we know that the magnetic field is
responsible for all the activity that the sun produces, but we
don't know Know how the magnetic field itself is produced. We
think it's a dynamo that is doing that inside the sun a
little bit similar to a dynamo inside the earth, which produces
the Earth's magnetic field. But we really don't know how it
functions. But we do know that the poles play a key role in
that. However, we don't have the data and that is where solar
orbiter will also revolutionize things.
Tereza Pultarova: That'ss fantastic. So let's have a look
at some of the questions that we have received from the
journalists. I have a question here from Lisa Grossman from
science news. When will solar orbiter take its first pictures
of the sun's poles? So I guess Daniel, would you like to take
this answer or Jose?
Daniel Müller: I can do that, Tereza. We will, as we explained
earlier, be gradually leaving the ecliptic plane. So it'll
it'll be let's say not on fixed date but I can give you a date
to work with, and that is in in 2025. we will be at an angle
where it starts getting interesting. And then in the
beginning of 2027 will reach an angle from which I think
especially Sami will be just delighted to get all this data.
So roughly about five years from now, this is when the polar
science starts coming and it will be fantastic, I'm sure.
Tereza Pultarova: And thank you. Our next question is from a
journalist called Thurston Dumbecht from a German
newspaper. And he asks, when can we expect more solar activity so
that the solar orbiter could even see more exciting things
going on at the sun compared to the quiet phase happening now?
So I assume Sami, would you like to take this question?
Sami Solanki: Yes, I can. I can try. A little bit the problem is
that we cannot really predict when activity picks Up on the
sun, however we can we have expectations and the expectation
is that it should start to pick up we see already the first
active regions of the new solar cycle. And at the moment, it's
still a trickle. But at some point, we think it's going to
become a real river of them flowing through. And so we hope
by the time we get close to the sun and into the real science
phase, we will have a much more active front.
Tereza Pultarova: And there is another question from Thurston
and that says, When will the first combined observation with
the Parker Solar Probe mission take place? So maybe Holly,
would you like to answer this one?
Holly Gilbert: Sure. I mean, Parker has already been taking
data for since it's been launched. And, and so as soon as
we get the science data, we are just early in the stages for
solar orbiter. But I'm sure the scientists will be working
together as soon as possible to really see when that data can be
combined and so we will have certain campaigns but I know
that the the scientists, some scientists on both teams are
already working hard to see how that data can be combined.
Tereza Pultarova: Okay, I'm not seeing any further questions
being forwarded from my colleague. So I'll give them a
little bit of time. And oh, now just something arrived. So
apologies for that. So we have a question from Sea or Space
journey, which is a US podcast and the journalist is Chuck
Fields. Hello, Chuck. And the first question he has is, what
is the approximate size of each of the campfires in today's
images? When Solar orbiter makes its closest approach to the Sun
42 million kilometers. how much smaller campfire features will
it be able to resolve in size compared to the images released
today? So I think David, would you like to take this question?
David Berghmans: Yes sure. the campfires that we see today are
the smallest ones are a couple of our pixels. A pixel is
corresponds to 400 kilometers the spatial resolution. So it's
about the size of a European country. See, that's, that's the
size of the smallest campfires. The thing with the solar corona
is that it's scale invariant. So if you look at smaller scales,
you will see smaller stuff. So I'm expecting that as we as we
go closer, make our images better and get high resolution
that we will see yet smaller ones.
Tereza Pultarova: And there is one more question from Chuck.
And he asks of the various imagers onboard solar orbiter.
Can you define what the highest resolution in terms of pixels
for images released today? What is the highest resolution in
terms of pixels for the images released today of the imagers
onboard orbiter? I don't know who would like to take this,
maybe Daniel?
David Berghmans: Well I think David raised his hand already so
I'll let David take that.
Tereza Pultarova: Ok, David.
David Berghmans: So the the the movies that you saw in which we
showed the campfires, the high resolution EUV images, they are
really pixel limited. So the resolution of a telescope is is
defined as twice the pixels. So the smallest features that we
see in those images, the smallest campfires are indeed
two pixels.
Tereza Pultarova: Next question is from a PA made media from
Nelima Marshall. And he she asks, How long does it take for
the scientists to see the images taken by the instruments on the
solar orbiter from the moment they are taken? Is it almost
instantaneous or does it take a few days? Daniel, would you like
to take this one or someone else?
Daniel Müller: Sure I can. I can give it a try and Jose Luis can
correct me if there are further details, so right now in what we
call the cruise phase, we have three antenna passes per week.
So roughly every second day, we spent about eight to nine hours
downlinking the data from the spacecraft to a big antenna of
our ESA S track network. So that defines roughly the turnaround
time that the closer you are to one of these traveling passes,
the sooner you get the data for the nominal mission phase, we
will have roughly one pass a day. So that means roughly
within the day, the instrument teams have the data.
Tereza Pultarova: So maybe because I was could you perhaps
kind of compare like how operating a deep space mission
like solo orbiter differs from let's say if you have a have a
spacecraft in Earth's orbit and some other Sun-observing
missions.
José Luis Pellón Bailón: Well, I think that there are two very
important factors one one is the distance to the spacecraft so we
have to deal with one way light time, which is the time that the
time that leaves the antenna takes to arrive to the
spacecraft. For example, just today, we are around 11 minutes
so when we send a command to the spacecraft it takes 11 minutes
to arrive to the spacecraft on 11 minutes to come back. the
telemetry, this is one aspect. The other aspect also related to
these terms is Daniel was mentioning also before is the
bandwidth when when you are far away, the bandwidth is reductin,
when you are close to the earth, the bandwidth is increasing. So
the solar orbiter orbit is sometimes is closer to the earth
sometimes is farther away. So depending on that we are
adopting the so called telemetry bitrate, which is the bandwidth
at which we downlink data from the instruments.
Tereza Pultarova: Thank you. I think Sami wanted to add some
Something to this question, Sami, do you still want to add
something?
Sami Solanki: Yes, Yeah. So it's, I think it's even more
complex than that. And the reason is that these images that
we are taking instruments like EUI and PHI, but also the other
remote sensing instruments, they're quite big. That's a lot
of data. And most solar missions are close to Earth, because the
sun gives us many photons, lots of data, and we can get them
down easily. Solar orbiter is a deep space mission. And so
telemetry is really a major limiting factor. That's why even
during the nominal mission phase, the remote sensing
instruments for orbit will only have 3 10-day windows in which
we can take images and then we typically have to wait weeks to
months till we get those images down.
Tereza Pultarova: Thank you. Next question is from Business
Insider. from Dave Mosher, and he asks: In the first image that
was zoomed in on, there seems to be an oval shaped dust bunny.
What is that object? Is it a defect or perhaps caused by the
solar environment? I think probably part of it would be
this one, right?
David Berghmans: Right. We we often joke that that is our
extra biology experiment with a little tardigrade or an insect
crawling over our images. But in fact, it's it's a sensor defect.
It's in our flat fields. And so in future processing, when we
further optimize this, this will be cleaned up and interpolated
from nearby pixels. But for the moment, it's it's still clearly
visible. And the reason why it's scrolling is that the the
original images were actually a bit shaky. And so in software,
we have corrected that shakiness and our rock solid now, but when
you do that, then the things that that were fixed like
defects in the in the detectors, they start jumping up and down.
And so you see this flat field part now the the tardigrade as
we call it or the gummy bear moving across the image.
Tereza Pultarova: Next question is from the telegraph from the
UK from Sarah Knapton and she asks, might there be a link
between campfires and space weather? Who would like to
answer this one? David again or Daniel? Hello?
Daniel Müller: I can give it a try. Um, the that's an
interesting question. And this is a question where the answer
will crucially depend on the measurements from the PHI
instrument and this is why we put a lot of emphasis in these
joint observations from more than one instrument because what
really counts is whether these the region that we are looking
at will be magnetically connected to interplanetary
space. So to be relevant for space weather, the magnetic
field must not close down on the solar surface at all times, but
really open up into space and eventually reach Earth. So from
these first images that the PHI instrument has been taken close
to that period, it looked as if all these features really are
local features that don't make it into the solar wind. But
there might be situations where this is different. And that is
really an interesting feature. Interesting question to
consider, whether in this case with a joint operation of let's
say, EUI, the PHI instrument and then the in situ instrument at
the location of the spacecraft like the magnetometer we might
be able to identify a link and thereby really nail down let's
say, the driving mechanism that caused space weather.
Tereza Pultarova: And does anybody want to add anything to
this? No. So yes, no. So next question. I have from Frank
comoccone from Latam Satelital and he is asking what is the
total expected duration of the mission? That is for how long
can we expect solar orbit to orbiter to work? So I think
either Daniel or Jose would like to answer that?
Daniel Müller: Okay, so the the total duration of the mission
that it has been designed for is over 10 years. And of course,
there are a number of factors that limit the lifetime of a
mission. One is fuel and the other one is solar array
performance. So on the fuel side, we are good we got a
picture perfect launch thanks to our American partners from the
United Launch Alliance under contract with NASA, so the the
launch that put us into our initial trajectory was so good
that no maneuver was needed to correct it and that really saved
us a significant amount of fuel that we can then use for
extending the mission. And the other part is the power returned
by the solar arrays, solar arrays in space can degrade by
being exposed to intense particles showers like like
protons, for example. And that depends on solar activity. So
it's hard to predict. But also there we will be, let's say,
looking forward to harnessing any extra lifetime we could get
I mean, typically engineers are conservative when they design
these pieces of hardware. So if they guarantee that it will last
for 10 years, there's a good chance that will last longer.
Tereza Pultarova: Thank you. Next question is from Monica
young from sky and telescope and it's for David Berghmans, what
region specifically do EUI images reach in the solar
atmosphere? That is what is the technical name transition
region, chromosphere?
David Berghmans: Okay, so we in fact, EUI has three telescopes.
The high resolution images that you saw today with the
campfires. These are taken in the extreme ultraviolet at 70
nanometers. And they correspond to 1 million degree in what we
call the solar Corona. Then there is the full sun imager,
which takes the almost, let's say full sky images with with
the big elephant in the picture. These are two wavelengths, the
same wavelength as before, so the coronal images, but also a
transition region image which we typically color red these are at
13.4 nanometer. And then there is a last third telescope, high
resolution lyman alpha telescope, which takes images in
the not in the extreme ultraviolet, but let's say the
regular ultraviolet at the lyman alpha wavelength, which is up to
121 nanometers and this region. it's a bit complicated, but it
combines the chromosphere and the transition region.
Tereza Pultarova: Thank you. So next question is from industry
and technology. It's French, I apologize for my pronunciation.
And the question is, I would like you to explain, if
possible, the main technical principle of the instruments
that allow the space probe to take images of the sun.
Furthermore, what type of spectroscopy did it use to take
images at the visible wavelengths? Who would like to
answer this question?
Sami Solanki: So Sami here, I can say something about the
visible wavelengths. So the PHI instrument observes in the
visible, we make use of the Zeeman effect, the splitting and
polarimetry of spectral lines to measure the magnetic field. It's
an imager, but it's a narrowband imager. Which looks at different
wavelengths within a spectral line and just around it at close
wavelengths to that. And the filter graph that does that,
that is a so called Fabry-perot instrument, using a novel
technology which has never flown in space before, using lithium
niobate etalongs. This is now very technical, but I understood
that the question is quite technical.
Tereza Pultarova: Thank you, Sammy. And next question we have
is from Cosmos magazine. Richard Lovett, I apologize if I
pronounce it incorrectly? And he asks, how much energy do these
small flares, the camp fires, produce? Who would like to take
this one? David maybe or Daniel,
David Berghmans: I can take it. Yeah. The short answer is we
don't know. So at the moment, we're just taking the first
images we see something is going on there. In our Images, they
are very bright and very dynamic, which means they there
is lots of energy in there. But to accurately determine what the
temperature and what the energy content is of the events, we
must have instruments collaborate. And an instrument
like EUI will not tell you that, you need a spectrograph like
SPICE. And so we're very much looking forward now in the in
the next phases to combine data from different instruments. And
it's only then that we will be able to answer that indeed
critical question.
Tereza Pultarova: Thank you. Do we have any other questions? I
have to, now it's coming. I apologize for the delay. So we
have a question from Irish TV from Leo Enright. How might the
particles and fields instruments be used to understand the
compfires? So I think maybe Chris, would you like to take
this one since it asks about in situ instruments?
Unknown: Well, I guess this is a mini version of the the whole
reason we're doing this mission is that we, you know, we want to
understand how all of these features that we might detect on
the on the, in the corona of the Sun and the physics behind them
how they affect the solar wind. So, so for sure, I mean, Dan,
Daniel mentioned it, you know, their, their effect on
interplanetary space depends on whether they're magnetically
connected to the spacecraft or not, but there might be regions
where they are on on magnetic fields and have free access out
into space. So in principle, these could be very important if
there are enough of them that they can drive the bulk of the
solar wind or they between them, they make up the bulk of the
solar wind then that that's really important for
interplanetary space and understanding how the solar wind
and therefore the sun affects our own local space environment.
But you know, the answering these kinds of questions is I
think what solar orbiter is really all about.
Tereza Pultarova: Thank you, Chris. Let's wait whether we'll
get any further questions in if we don't, I have one question
for each of you before we, ah now it's come so it's Josh
Warren from BBC FM radio Bristol. Given the proximity to
the sun, how does the orbiter protect itself from the sun?
What does it needs to protect itself against the sun? Is it
excess heat? What does it need to protect itself against? Is it
excess heat? Is it the solar wind? Where are the dangerous
the orbiter? What are the dangers that the orbiter might
face? So, I think that might be for hosa or for Daniel would
like to take this question.
José Luis Pellón Bailón: Well, I can say that the the solar
orbiter has a heat shield the spacecraft is let's say hiding
behind this shield this heat shield. And another feature of
the spacecraft is that we are facing with this heat shield
always to the sun and the heat queues have doors that we opened
in order to allow the remote sensing instruments to observe
through and the biggest protection of the spacecraft in
this very harsh environment. The Solar arrays, as soon as we get
closer to the sun, we deal them we come to them such that we
offer less, less less to the sun, and they don't get very
hot. And these are the main protections.
Tereza Pultarova: I think Daniel would like to add something to
this. So Daniel, if you want to add anything?
Daniel Müller: Yes, I think in addition to what what Jose Luis
just correctly explained, it's also important to note that
behind these heat shield doors, we still have let's say
instruments that are sensitive so they all have the individual
tricks up their sleeves to deal with intense heat. So for
example, the PHI instrument has has a very sophisticated
multi-layer coating that reflects almost the entire
spectrum of light, except for the small part that the
instrument can use for its observations. And then we have
the spice instrument that has another trick. It's effectively
letting all the instrument pass through the backside of the
spacecraft. And it's just filtering out with a grating a
particular piece in the ultraviolet that it is using.
And our X-ray instrument has even a metallic shield are made
out of beryllium which is unpenetratable for normal light,
but the X rays get through so they are so let's say customized
solutions for each instrument to keep it safe.
Tereza Pultarova: I also understand that the solar panels
had to be designed to tilt so that they are not like full-on
exposed to the sunlight there are many many interesting
things. You won't be able to address all of them. I think
Chris also would like to add something to this.
Chris Owen: I was just gonna add to the question kind of the
asked about the variety of engineering challenges that we
might have had to face like I was just going to point out the
one of the things that I find sort of somewhat fascinating. We
have three sensors, two of which are on, on the front of the
spacecraft and have cutouts in the heat shield so they can view
in the solar direction. And the third one is on the end of the
boom, which sits in the in the shadow. So the first two have
very clever solutions to have their own heat shields and let
the thermal energy pass straight through them and at the back of
the instrument. The third one we actually have to deploy quite
powerful heaters on in order to keep it warming up because it
never sees the sun. And so it only sees the very cold of deep
space. So paradoxically on a spacecraft that is going close
to the sun, we are heating our instrument.
Tereza Pultarova: Thank you. We still have a little bit of time
left. So I have one last question for everybody. And that
is what is your favorite solar mystery that you hope so orbiter
will solve and I was thinking maybe Holly could start.
Holly Gilbert: Sure. I mean, it's really difficult to choose
one. But I think I'm most excited about really learning
more from the polar regions and how the Sun generates the
magnetic field because I think that's going to be really really
useful for space weather prediction and forecasting.
Tereza Pultarova: Thank you. Quick perhaps, Sami go next,
what's your favorite mystery?
Sami Solanki: I'm actually very much the same. I'm also looking
forward to seeing how the magnetic field is produced. And
learning about that and also how everything hangs together in the
in the solar atmosphere and now out into the heliosphere. So I'm
really looking forward to work together with David and
Frederic, the PI of SPICE and others to solve what these
campfires are what is causing coronal heating. I think it's,
there's so many exciting things coming up..
Tereza Pultarova: Thank you, David, would you like to like to
go next?
David Berghmans: Yeah, I think I can. I can echo what Sami says.
Perhaps what I what I'm really looking forward to is all these
crazy little things that we're seeing in the high resolution
images, which are the ones that actually matter for for the
heliosphere, which one of those do make it outside there?
Because most of it is falling back and is just of local
importance in the Corona, but some of them, some of it must be
creating the solar wind or must be relevant for it.
Tereza Pultarova: Thank you, Chris, what is your favorite
mystery? What are you looking forward to?
Chris Owen: Yes, I completely endorse. I mean, these are all
the big questions that we've spent the last, you know, 10
years or more, building this mission to address so
absolutely, those are those are things that we're looking
forward to. I might be a bit more parochial and say well, you
know, as a representative of the in situ group we we've we've
added some some what I think are interesting bells and whistles
working together so for example, we were going to try to work out
on board between us when when a shockwave passes a spacecraft
and use that to capture some very short periods of high
resolution and you know, it's not part of the of the main
goals perhaps but it'll be fun to see how that works, and if it
does, I think we'll end up with some great new new data
concerning collisionless shocks. So for the community that's into
into that kind of thing. You know, stay tuned. I hope that's
something that's that will be fun and interesting.
Tereza Pultarova: And best thing, Daniel, what about you?
Daniel Müller: I think I can really only add to what has been
said before, I think I'm, let's say, really torn between the big
picture, the ultimate goal of really having the entire team of
10 instruments perform together and connect the dots. I think
that to me is really the overarching goal of the mission.
But then, in addition, because I have to admit, I'm also not very
patient. And right now, having seen these first fantastic
images from EUI, I'm just ex ited in the short term to lo
k into those in more detail an use the power of our UV sp
ctrometer and the magnetograp to shed more light of thos
.
Unknown: Thank you, Daniel. L st is Jose, so I'm just won
ering, because for me It's mor involved in the operations kin
of side of things. So what are you in general looking for
ard to in terms of the solar Orb ter Mission which I can und
rstand is quite interesting in erms of its trajectory and ope
ations.
Well, I'm really looking forward to arrive to the operational, to
the nominal science orbit and how we go around perihelion with
the very harsh environment and the huge amount of data to be
downlink. And this is going to be challenging because we will
receive also from the scientists very last minute request that we
have to insert in our timeline on this, this will be really
important part of our work in ESOC
Thank you because I think we will have to wrap up right now.
So for information for more for more information about solar
orbiter go to ESA.int/solarorbi er. If you want to arrange inte
views with our panelists or other ESA and related exper
s, please email media@Esa.int Thank you everybody for j
ining us today and we will loo forward to sharing more so
ar orbital breakthroughs w th you in the future.