Talk:Solar and Heliospheric Observatory

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For reference:[1]

SOHO Copyright Notice: The use of SOHO images or data for public education efforts and non-commercial purposes is strongly encouraged and requires no expressed authorization. It is requested, however, that any such use properly attributes the source of the images or data as: "Courtesy of SOHO/[instrument] consortium. SOHO is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA." Where [instrument] stands for the name of the instrument that acquired the data (i.e. SOHO/EIT, SOHO/LASCO, etc).

Another, shorter, version of the notice: "SOHO (ESA & NASA)" is also acceptable.

JamesDay 09:43, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Would a picture of the satellite itself do better than one of the pictures it took? Or maybe in addition? -- zandperl

It's most interesting because of the sun, so those seem to deserve priority, but I would like to see a picture of the satellite as well. JamesDay 15:53, 29 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Added a better picture of SOHO. To answer the questions above: (1) you need both a picture of the vehicle and a picture of the science. Well, not need, but what's the point of an article without a picture of the vehicle. Rob 06:58, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

It would be great if someone could include a paragraph or two mentioning the efforts that went into the recovery of the SOHO after its tracking system went kaput: http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/operations/Recovery/recovery_diary.html --Hooperbloob 20:54, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

:I worked on SOHO from 1996-1999. I could write something about the 1998 anomaly. I've been carrying around info about it for years, maybe this is why. But to describe it adequately would require a separate article IMO. Opinions? Rob 05:23, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

:On second thought, I could be brief. I'll write a brief description up. Rob 02:39, 11 March 2006 (UTC) Please see Prototype Text below. Comments welcome. Rob 18:48, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

I corrected the Instruments and added a Scientific Objectives section. I also move the 'see also' links to their own section, but I think they could be trashed. I'd like to break the overview of into a smaller overiew, and incoroprate some of the information into a Spacecraft Subsystems section. I'll verify dates and mission phases later. But what I really need to do is stop being late to work because I stay up at night editing articles on Wikipedia. Rob 06:23, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Any other requests? Rob 07:09, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Spelled out SOHO but can't get it to center above the new picture. A little help? Rob 07:13, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Move Sci Objectives above Instruments. That's the order in the SOHO Users Manual. Rob 12:05, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Added links for Instruments, said they are mounted on the Payload Module.Rob 02:38, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Loss of SOHO Prototype Text

The SOHO Mission Interruption sequence of events began on 24 June 1998, while the SOHO Team was conducting a series of spacecraft gyroscope calibrations and maneuvers. Operations proceeded until 23:16 UTC when SOHO lost lock on the Sun, and entered an emergency attitude control mode called Emergency Sun Reacquisition (ESR). The SOHO Team attempted to recover the observatory, but SOHO entered the emergency mode again on June 25 02:35 UTC. Recovery efforts continued, but SOHO entered the emergency mode for the last time at 04:38 UTC. All contact with SOHO was lost, and the mission interruption had begun. SOHO was no longer pointing at the Sun, spinning, and losing electrical power.

Expert ESA personnel were immediately dispatched from Europe to the United States to direct operations. Days passed without contact from SOHO. On July 23, the Arecibo Observatory and DSN antennas were used to locate SOHO with radar, and to determine its location and attitude. SOHO was close to its predicted position, oriented with its side versus the usual front Optical Surface Reflector panel pointing toward the Sun, and was rotating at one RPM. Once SOHO was located, plans for contacting SOHO were formed. On 3 August a carrier was detected from SOHO, the first signal since June 25. After days of charging the battery, a successful attempt was made to modulate the carrier and downlink telemetry on August 8. After instrument temperatures were downlinked on August 9, data analysis was performed, and planning for the SOHO recovery began in earnest.

The SOHO Recovery Team began by allocating the limited electrical power. After this, SOHO's anomalous orientation in space was determined. Thawing the frozen hydrazine fuel tank using SOHO's thermal control heaters began on August 12. Thawing pipes and the thrusters was next, and SOHO was re-oriented towards the Sun on September 16. After nearly a week of spacecraft bus recovery activities and an orbital correction maneuver, the SOHO spacecraft (bus) returned to normal mode on September 25 at 19:52 UTC. Recovery of the instruments began on October 5 with SUMER, and ended on October 24, 1998 with CELIAS.

Only one gyro remained operational after this recovery, and on December 21 that gyro failed. Attitude control was accomplished with manual thruster firings that consumed 7kg of fuel weekly, while ESA developed a new gyroless operations mode that was successfully implemented on February 1, 1999.

[edit] Additional References

Added the rough draft above here first instead of in article. Edits, comments welcome. I tried to have once sentence per IMHO significant event. Based mainly on An Unprecedented Success Story and my memory of the events. Rob 20:34, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

you just copied the article. thats kind of irrelavent. Billycheezit129.44.25.158 (talk) 20:10, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Launch vehicle

Do you know what launch vehicle did SOHO took on? Thanks. Bigtop 23:14, 28 August 2006 (UTC)