The solar orbiter has safely passed through the space debris region

Science Newsroom, November 29 (EFE). The Solar Orbiter probe completed its approach to Earth this weekend before continuing towards the Sun. A risky maneuver because the ship had to cross two areas filled with space debris.

Finally, the flight was quiet and the Solar Orbiter, whose mission is to study our star, is active again and is producing data.

The flyby of debris clouds completed successfully this weekend, a tweet from the mission states that the data obtained as it passed over Earth was “excellent”, but its processing has yet to be completed.

Last week, the European Space Agency said the flight would be “the most dangerous yet for a science mission”. The planet’s closest moment occurred last Saturday, when it was located just 460 kilometers above North Africa and the Canary Islands.

On its approach to Earth, the probe passed through two orbital regions populated by space debris. The first is the geostationary ring of satellites at an altitude of 36,000 km and the second is a set of low Earth orbits about 400 km away.

The Earth-flying maneuver was necessary to reduce the probe’s energy and align its next step closer to the Sun.

In this way, begins the main scientific mission of the Solar Orbiter, which was launched in February 2020 and since last July has been in the cruise phase.

Returning to Earth’s vicinity provided the probe with an opportunity to study its magnetic field, the atmospheric interface to the solar wind, a continuous stream of particles emitted by the sun.

CR / International Committee of the Red Cross

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