In October 1990, ESA launched the Ulysses probe to study the space environment above and below the Sun’s poles. In addition to the solar mission launched in collaboration with NASA and JAXA, ESA also launched Proba-2 in October 2001.
Proba-2 is the second part of the Proba series and builds on the successful experience of Proba-1 over almost eight years, even when Proba-1 was not a solar reconnaissance mission.
Four experiments are taking place on board Proba-2, two of which are observations of the Sun.
Proba is an abbreviation for Project for On-Board Autonomy. ESA’s upcoming solar missions include Proba-3, scheduled for launch in 2024, and Smile, scheduled for launch in 2025.
The Advanced Space-based Solar Observatory (ASO-S) was successfully launched on October 8, 2022 by the National Space Science Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).
ASO-S flies to study the Sun and improve space weather forecasts. The satellite flew on a Long March 2D rocket.
This spacecraft is also nicknamed Kuafu-1, after the giant in Chinese mythology who chased the sun. Kuafu-1 was successfully launched into its target orbit, a sun-synchronous orbit about 720 km above Earth.
