SOHO, the Solar & Heliospheric Observatory, is a project of
international collaboration between ESA and NASA to study the
Sun from its deep core to the outer corona and the solar wind.
SOHO was launched on December 2, 1995. The SOHO spacecraft was
built in Europe by an industry team led by prime contractor
Matra Marconi Space (now EADS Astrium) under overall management
by ESA. The twelve instruments on board SOHO were provided by
European and American scientists. Nine of the international
instrument consortia are led by European Principal Investigators
(PI's), three by PI's from the US. Large engineering teams and
more than 200 co-investigators from many institutions supported
the PI's in the development of the instruments and in the
preparation of their operations and data analysis. NASA was
responsible for the launch and is now responsible for mission
operations. Large radio dishes around the world which form
NASA's Deep Space Network are used for data downlink and
commanding. Mission control is based at Goddard Space Flight
Center in Maryland. |