Solar Orbiter Flies By Earth Before Heading To The Sun

The Solar Orbiter space probe had a brief encounter with its home planet on Saturday morning when it circled the Earth for the first and last time while executing a gravity assist to slow itself down before setting off for the Sun, Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa) reported.

Photo Insert: ESA's Solar Orbiter

Solar Orbiter was launched in February 2020, and has already flown through the tail of a comet, flown by Venus, and captured the most detailed photographs of the Sun ever taken. On Saturday morning at 5.30 am (CET) the spacecraft flew over the Earth at an altitude of 460 kilometers, passing directly over North Africa and the Canary Islands.

According to the European Space Agency (ESA), in order to execute the orbits the probe risked impact with the space debris the surrounds Earth. But according to Simon Plum, head of mission operations at the ESA control center in Darmstadt, Germany, the risk of collision was minimal.

In a worst-case scenario of potential collision, he said, the probe could have initiated an evasive maneuver up to six hours before impact. However, Plum said, this had not been necessary and the orbiter was now on its way back into deep space.

All onboard instruments for the next phase of the mission will become operational over the coming weeks. By March, Solar Orbiter will have flown some 50 million kilometers, though it will still only be a third of the way to the center of the solar system.

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