SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory)

SOHO, the Solar & Heliospheric Observatory, is a project of international collaboration between ESAand NASA to study the Sun from its deep core to the outer corona and the solar wind.

SOHO was launched on December 2, 1995. The SOHO spacecraft was built in Europe by an industry team led by prime contractor Matra Marconi Space (now EADS Astrium) under overall management by ESA. The twelve instruments on board SOHO were provided by European and American scientists. Nine of the international instrument consortia are led by European Principal Investigators (PI’s), three by PI’s from the US. Large engineering teams and more than 200 co-investigators from many institutions supported the PI’s in the development of the instruments and in the preparation of their operations and data analysis. NASA was responsible for the launch and is now responsible for mission operations. Large radio dishes around the world which form NASA’s Deep Space Networkare used for data downlink and commanding. Mission control is based at Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

This is a list of links to in depth information about the on-board instruments, the teams that built and operate them and their scientific goals. See also the instrument resources pages for pointers about how to operate and analyse science data.