Next steps for Solar Orbiter

Yesterday, the MSSL built ‘brains’ of the EUV Imager (EUI) on Solar Orbiter were successfully switched on and initial tests completed. MSSL’s engineering team was responsible for the design, build and testing of the Common Electronic Box (CEB), harnessing and overall electronics/software systems engineering. The CEB manages the operation of all 3 telescopes at the same time: HRI, HRI LyA and FSI, and is highly automated with 10Hz image cadence. The CEB has >6000 parts and 220k lines of C/Assembler code. This represents another huge success for our very talented engineering teams here at MSSL.

The EUI camera switch on will take place on 5 March, with the first light images expected from EUI at the end of April and Solar Orbiter commissioning will continue until mid-June. The remote sensing instruments will start their science phase following the end of the cruise phase of the mission, expected to be in November 2021.