UCL DEPARTMENT OF SPACE & CLIMATE PHYSICS

Members of MSSL's PI team for the Solar Orbiter SWA investigation went to ESTEC to support the 9th Science Working Team meeting and the Science Operations Working Group for the mission.  In the first full SWT since the formal selection of the mission by ESA, information on the latest developments of the mission and the instruments were exchanged between the project and all 10 instrument teams.  The assembled scientists also engaged in a preliminary science planning exercise to study how the combined payloads may be operated during the early orbits of the mission following launch in January 2017.  A number of technical splinter meetings were also held.  Chris Owen (SWA Principal Investigator) and Barry Hancock (SWA Systems Engineer) represented MSSL at the meeting.

Picture caption:  The first Solar Orbiter science orbit around the Sun in several different visualisation systems.  The 3 primary science periods, covering 10 days centred on maximum northern latitude, closest approach and maximum southern latitude are marked by the green, red and blue bars respectively on each panel.  In these periods the full payload will operate in a manner consistent with achieving the mission science goals.