What is the Heliophysics System Observatory? ¶

The NASA Heliophysics Division science.nasa.gov/heliophysics as many operating space missions observing the Sun, Heliosphere, and near-Earth space. Additionally, there many are sounding rockets, balloons, and ground-based observatories that are providing important measurements.

The Heliophysics Division was established in 2006, combining solar astrophysics with heliospheric and geospace science. Heliophysics is a relatively new field of research. The goal of Heliophysics is to understand everything from how planetary atmospheres have formed, to how space weather can affect astronauts and technology near Earth, to the physics that defines our neighborhood in space.

The “Heliophysics System Observatory” nasa.gov/mission_pages (HSO) concept was created to link all of the observations together to achieve the goal of Heliophysics, and treat the different measurement as a single comprehensive observatory. HSO includes spacecraft near the Sun to understand how it functions and sends out a constant stream of solar wind, to those near Earth to measure the space weather around our planet, to those studying our very boundaries with interstellar space. Heliophysics research is also augmented by suborbital missions on sounding rockets and balloons. Together, the heliophysics missions work together to enable large scale investigations of more complexity than any single mission could do on its own.