Solar orbiter: mission to study the sun [Space innovation]

Designing a spacecraft that can image the Sun as closely as possible without melting the delicate instruments has been a challenge. But scientists' luck could be about to change.LAUNCHED IN February 2020 from Cape Canaveral, a 1.7-tonne spacecraft called the Solar Orbiter aims to get up-close images of the Sun from 42 million kilometres away, while measuring its energetic behaviour in real-time. The suite of 10 on-board instruments will enable it to uniquely marry the study of events in the Sun's gaseous corona, measure its magnetic fields, and sample the solar wind as it flows past the spacecraft as a stream of energetic particles.