The Solar Orbiter Mission

This discovery, and the spacecraft that enabled it, sparked a mission to understand the true nature of our relationship with our parent star. Today, this mission has found a new relevance as we know that living in the atmosphere of the Sun can have dramatic consequences on our modern way of living. For these reasons a huge international collaboration has come together to create a spacecraft called Solar Orbiter. Flying dazzlingly close to the Sun, Solar Orbiter is allowing us to view and understand the Sun in a new way. This talk focusses on the Solar Orbiter spacecraft, asking where is it and what is it discovering? And how did teams cross Europe come together to design and build such a complex spacecraft that is experiencing searing temperatures and cost £250 million? Come along to find out how Solar Orbiter is giving us a once in lifetime opportunity to reveal…