Its first pass, called a perihelion, took place in June 2020, with the spacecraft closing to 77 million kilometres. Solar Orbiter will make its closest pass to the Sun in March. Solar Orbiter’s operations team are monitoring the situation very closely and will alter the spacecraft’s trajectory if it appears to be in any danger. As a result, there is a small risk of a collision. The first is the geostationary ring of satellites at 36 000 km, and the second is the collection of low Earth orbits at around 400 km. The spacecraft must pass through two orbital regions, each of which is populated with space debris. But instead we are crossing our fingers and hoping for its safe passage.” We should be looking up and waving, marking this milestone in its journey. “Solar Orbiter passing close by the Earth should be occasion to celebrate. The recent Russian satellite that was purposely destroyed into thousands of pieces shows how the problem is worsening. Professor Lucie Green (UCL Mullard Space Science Laboratory) said: “Space debris is of increasing concern and the number of near misses, although rare, is on the rise. The manoeuvre is essential to decrease the energy of the spacecraft and line it up for its next close pass of the Sun but it comes with a risk. This is almost as close as the orbit of the International Space Station. At 04:30 GMT (05:30 CET) on that day, the spacecraft will be at its closest approach, just 460 km above North Africa and the Canary Islands. The Earth flyby, the riskiest ever undertaken by a space science mission because of the risk of collision, takes place a week on Saturday, on 27 November. Solar Orbiter, a European Space Agency (ESA) spacecraft carrying instruments proposed, designed and built at UCL, is returning to Earth for a flyby passing through clouds of space debris before starting its main science mission exploring the Sun.
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