This animation shows the orbital location of ESA’s future solar activity monitoring mission at L5, the 5th Lagrange point. This position provides a unique ‘side’ view of the Sun.
The agency is now studying design options for stationing a dedicated space weather mission at the L5 point, where gravity and the orbital motion of the spacecraft, the Sun and our planet combine to create a stable location. From here, the spacecraft would view solar features before they rotate into view of Earth.
The spacecraft’s instruments will provide near real-time data and are expected to build on those flown on earlier ESA and joint solar missions, such as SOHO, Stereo, Proba-2 and Solar Orbiter.