![]() The launch was originally slated for Feb. The delays in attaching Solar Orbiter to its Atlas 5 launcher forced officials to push back the mission’s liftoff from Feb. Poor weather Thursday prevented Solar Orbiter from rolling out to the VIF on Thursday, but conditions improved for the transfer operation Friday. The Solar Orbiter spacecraft’s mating with its launch vehicle was delayed two days this week, first by a SpaceX launch from the nearby Complex 40 launch pad Wednesday, which prevented the payload transfer to the VIF due to safety concerns because of the close proximity between the pads. The Solar Orbiter spacecraft was encapsulated inside the Atlas 5 rocket’s payload fairing Jan. Teams there hoisted the Solar Orbiter spacecraft - already enclosed inside its 4-meter (13.1-f0ot) payload shroud - atop an Atlas 5 launcher. The nearly 3,900-pound (1,750-kilogram) spacecraft was transferred by truck from the Astrotech payload processing facility in Titusville, Florida, early Friday and arrived at ULA’s Vertical Integration Facility at Cape Canaveral’s Complex 41 launch pad several hours later. At that time, officials expected the mission to be ready for launch between 20.Īfter a decade of concept studies, and the start of a new partnership with NASA, ESA formally selected Solar Orbiter in 2011 for full-scale development, with a launch scheduled in 2017.īut technical difficulties in building the Solar Orbiter spacecraft delayed the mission to 2020. Scientists first developed the concept for the Solar Orbiter mission in 1999, and ESA approved the project in 2000 for additional studies. “The purpose of this mission is looking at these very dynamic phenomena, and trying to determine what makes them happen,” García said.īut it’s been a long wait. “It’s constantly ejecting mass, ejecting charged particles and ejecting magnetic fields into where we are, into the heliosphere. “The sun is an extremely dynamic astronomical body,” said César García, ESA’s project manager for the Solar Orbiter mission. “It will be terra incognita,” said Daniel Müller, project scientist for the mission at the European Space Agency. Scientists are eager for the unprecedented images and data Solar Orbiter will beam back to Earth, including the first-ever views of the sun’s poles. 9 to finally begin a more than $1.5 billion science mission first approved by the European Space Agency nearly 20 years ago. The European-built Solar Orbiter spacecraft was installed on top of its United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 launcher Friday at Cape Canaveral, ready for final charging and checkouts before liftoff Feb. The Solar Orbiter spacecraft, cocooned inside the Atlas 5 rocket’s payload shroud, was attached atop the Atlas 5 launcher Friday after an early morning departure from a nearby payload processing facility.
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