Apr 5 1988
From The Space Library
NASA and the ESA announced the selection of scientific investigations to be conducted on two spacecraft as part of a joint NASA-ESA solar terrestrial research program. More than 130 U.S. scientists were scheduled to participate in the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) and Cluster missions. Two spacecraft systems were to be built by ESA with instruments supplied by both ESA and NASA. The Cluster mission, involving a set of four satellites, was planned for launch on an ESA Ariane launch vehicle in December 1995. The Cluster would investigate the space plasma three-dimensional microphysics phenomena in Earth's magnetic field environment, using four identical spacecraft in polar orbits. SOHO, planned for launch by NASA on the Shuttle or on an expendable launch vehicle in March 1995, would be placed at the Earth-Sun La Grangian point and investigate the physical processes that form and heat the solar corona and give rise to the solar wind.
The SOHO and Cluster missions are an outgrowth of the International Solar Terrestrial Physics (ISTP) program, a major international program in solar and space physics organized in 1985 by NASA, the Japanese Institute for Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), and ESA. (NASA Release 88-48)
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