Part of ESA's first cornerstone mission, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, SOHO, was launched in December 1995. Despite one major scare, it has given outstanding scientific results ever since, providing the international scientific community with the unique opportunity, and challenge, of understanding the Sun and heliosphere as one complex system.
SOHO is the most comprehensive space mission ever devoted to the study of the Sun and its nearby cosmic environment known as the heliosphere. From its vantage point of a halo orbit around the first Lagrangian point, L1, SOHO's twelve scientific instruments observe and measure structures and processes occurring inside as well as outside the Sun.
This talk describes the background and design of the satellite and its payload of scientific instruments. The loss and recovery will be described. Some scientific results from the imaging instruments will be presented.
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Eric Sawyer is a project manager at the CLRC's Rutherford Appleton laboratory in Oxfordshire. A mechanical engineer by training, he has worked on many scientific satellite programmes, in roles ranging from mechanical engineer to project manager. He was project manager for one of the SOHO instruments, the Coronal Diagnostic Spectrometer (CDS). He is currently project manager for the GERB instrument, which will fly on the next generation of Meteosat satellites.
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No Tickets Required and Visitors Welcome
This Lecture has been organised by the Royal Aeronautical Society's Space Group. The Lecture will be held in the Society's Lecture Theatre commencing at 1800 hrs. Contact: Conference Department, RAeS, 4 Hamilton Place, London, W1V 0BQ.
Tel: 0171 499 3515 Fax: 0171 670 4349 Email: space@aerosociety.com