One of the largest Czech space projects - Solar Orbiter launches on historic mission to study the sun's poles
A breakthrough European satellite, Solar Orbiter, launched from the US Cape Canaveral to the Sun on the night February 9/10, 2020. A key component of the satellite is a unique optical system developed and manufactured in IPP by the Czech scientists from the Research Centre for Special Optics and Optoelectronic Systems (TOPTEC) in Turnov.
Solar Orbiter, an ESA-led mission with strong NASA participation, will provide the first views
of the Sun's uncharted polar regions, giving unprecedented insight into how our parent star works.
It will also investigate how intense radiation and energetic particles being blasted out from the
Sun and carried by the solar wind through the Solar System impact our home planet, to better
understand and predict periods of stormy 'space weather'.
Photo: ESA.
10 Feb 2020
