PropertyValue
rdf:type
rdfs:label
  • Solar and Heliospheric Observatory
rdfs:comment
  • The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) is a spacecraft built by a European industrial consortium led by Matra Marconi Space (now Astrium) that was launched on a Lockheed Martin Atlas II AS launch vehicle on December 2, 1995 to study the Sun, and has discovered over 3000 comets. It began normal operations in May 1996. It is a joint project of international cooperation between the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA. Originally planned as a two-year mission, SOHO continues to operate after over 20 years in space. In June 2013, a mission extension lasting until December 2016 was approved.
owl:sameAs
COSPAR ID
  • 1995
dcterms:subject
dbkwik:nasa/property/wikiPageUsesTemplate
Power
  • 1500
SATCAT
  • 23726
Mission Duration
  • 1995-12-02
  • 9.46728E7
Name
  • Solar and Heliospheric Observatory
Image caption
  • Artist's concept of SOHO
Manufacturer
Image size
  • 250
Operator
  • ESANASA
launch site
Mission Type
  • Solar observation
apsis
  • apsis
orbit regime
launch rocket
  • Atlas IIAS AC-121
Launch date
  • 1995-12-02
orbit epoch
  • planned
orbit reference
abstract
  • The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) is a spacecraft built by a European industrial consortium led by Matra Marconi Space (now Astrium) that was launched on a Lockheed Martin Atlas II AS launch vehicle on December 2, 1995 to study the Sun, and has discovered over 3000 comets. It began normal operations in May 1996. It is a joint project of international cooperation between the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA. Originally planned as a two-year mission, SOHO continues to operate after over 20 years in space. In June 2013, a mission extension lasting until December 2016 was approved. In addition to its scientific mission, it is the main source of near-real-time solar data for space weather prediction. Along with the GGS Wind, Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) and DSCOVR, SOHO is one of four spacecraft in the vicinity of the Earth–Sun L1 point, a point of gravitational balance located approximately 0.99 astronomical unit (AU)s from the Sun and 0.01 AU from the Earth. In addition to its scientific contributions, SOHO is distinguished by being the first three-axis-stabilized spacecraft to use its reaction wheels as a kind of virtual gyroscope; the technique was adopted after an on-board emergency in 1998 that nearly resulted in the loss of the spacecraft.
is payloads of