Before the 3rd Venus flyby, Solar Orbiter was bombarded by the sun’s coronal material | TechNews Technology News

Getting close to the sun always requires another kind of mental preparation. The Solar Orbiter developed by NASA and ESA has been traveling for two years on its way to observe the sun. It was preparing to perform a critical gravity flyby of Venus again. As a result, it suffered a coronal mass explosion from the sun. Fortunately, the spacecraft itself was not damaged. Try to get valuable data.

The Solar Orbiter Spacecraft (SolO) was launched on February 9, 2020, equipped with 10 sets of instruments, and the mission is to fly over the sun’s poles, observe the ecology of the inner heliosphere and the solar wind, and attempt to directly image the sun. Solar Orbiter orbits in resonance with Venus, so during its 10-year mission, the spacecraft will return to Venus at intervals, using the planet’s gravity to change or tilt its orbit closer to the sun, which also saves fuel.

On September 4 this year, Solar Orbiter prepared to perform its third gravity flyby of Venus, when the spacecraft was about 6,000 kilometers from the surface of Venus’ atmosphere, just a few days after the sun’s coronal mass ejection (CME) erupted on August 30. , so the aircraft received this wave of high-energy particle flow attack frontally.

However, Solar Orbiter knew before it set off that it was bound to encounter these things on its journey, so it was designed to withstand high-temperature eruptions within a distance of just 0.27 AU from the surface of the sun, and the spacecraft was also coated with a special black coating to protect it from Affected by the scorching sun.

The spacecraft was fortunate to collect valuable records during this coronal mass ejection event, and it also found that Venus’ atmosphere was partially stripped from the event. As more and more relevant data are collected, it will help astronomers understand how they arise, improving space weather models, predictions and early warning systems.

At present, Solar Orbiter is still in the same orbital plane (ecliptic plane) as the planet, but starting from February 2025, the orbital inclination will increase every time the spacecraft passes Venus, and will eventually “jump” out of the ecliptic plane, from the other side. A special orbit observes the polar regions of the sun.

(Source of the first image: ESA)

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