The first views of the Sun's poles

Solar Orbiter

Solar Orbiter is a European Space Agency mission with strong NASA participation, launched in February 2020. It combines close-up images of the Sun with measurements of the solar wind flowing past the spacecraft.

Repeated gravity assists from Venus are tilting its orbit out of the plane of the planets, giving it views of the Sun's poles that no previous telescope has had.

Key facts

Agency: ESA / NASA
Launched: 2020-02-10
Launch vehicle: Atlas V 411
Power: Solar arrays
Mission type: Solar orbiter
Closest approach: About 0.28–0.3 AU from the Sun
Status: Orbiting the Sun on an increasingly inclined path

Where it is now

Loading live position from NASA/JPL Horizons…

Solar orbit with rising inclination over the coming years.

Mission objectives

Solar Orbiter investigates how the Sun creates and controls the heliosphere: where the solar wind comes from, how solar eruptions drive space weather and how the Sun's magnetic field is generated and reverses roughly every 11 years.

The spacecraft

A titanium heat shield protects the spacecraft, with small doors that open to let the remote-sensing telescopes look at the Sun. It carries ten instruments: six that image the Sun and its atmosphere and four that sample the surrounding particles and fields.

Discoveries and highlights

Its early images revealed tiny flares nicknamed 'campfires' across the solar surface. A Venus flyby in February 2025 raised its orbital inclination, and in 2025 it returned the first images ever taken of the Sun's south pole.

Route and timeline

2020-02-10Launch, Cape Canaveral
2022-03-26First close perihelion (about 0.32 AU)
2025-02-18Venus flyby tilts orbit out of the ecliptic

Surprising facts about Solar Orbiter

Solar Orbiter's heat shield faces sunlight about 13 times more intense than at Earth.
Its orbit will become steadily more tilted over the coming years.
It works alongside Parker Solar Probe, which samples the corona from even closer.

Keep exploring

Sources