Missions Exploring Our Sun

The Advanced Composition Explorer collects and analyzes particles of solar, interplanetary, interstellar, and galactic origins. The data contributes to our understanding of the Sun, its interaction with Earth, and the evolution of the solar system.

The Interstellar Boundary Explorer is a NASA spacecraft studying how our heliosphere, the magnetic bubble surrounding our Sun and planets, interacts with interstellar space.

The Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe studies the boundary of the heliosphere, a huge bubble created by the Sun surrounding and protecting our solar system.

The Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere mission is a constellation of four small satellites in low Earth orbit that will make global, 3D observations of the entire inner heliosphere to learn how the Sun's corona becomes the solar wind.

The Radiation Assessment Detector is mounted on NASA's Mars Curiosity Rover and measures and identifies all high-energy radiation on the Martian surface, such as protons, energetic ions of various elements, neutrons, and gamma rays.

Voyager 1 and its twin Voyager 2 are the only spacecraft ever to operate outside the heliosphere, the protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields generated by the Sun. Voyager 1 reached the interstellar boundary in 2012, while Voyager 2 (traveling slower and in a different direction than its twin) reached it in 2018.

Wind is a spin-stabilized spacecraft that observes the solar wind that is about to impact the magnetosphere of Earth.

The Atmospheric Waves Experiment was installed on the exterior of the International Space Station in November 2023. From its space station perch, AWE is studying colorful bands of light in Earth’s atmosphere, called airglow.

The Carruthers observatory studies Earth’s geocorona, the ultraviolet glow emitted by Earth's exosphere, our planets outermost atmospheric layer.

The Electrojet Zeeman Imaging Explorer
is a trio of satellites comprising the first mission dedicated to studying auroral electrojets.

The Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk mission measures densities and temperatures in Earth’s thermosphere and ionosphere.

The Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions During Substorms mission studies how mass and energy move through the near-Earth space environment, to determine what initiates the dancing lights of auroras near the poles.

The Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics mission is studying the influence of the Sun and humans on the least explored and understood region of Earth's atmosphere — the mesosphere and lower thermosphere / ionosphere.

The Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers mission uses two identical spacecraft to investigate how the solar wind interacts with Mars’ magnetic environment and how this interaction drives the planet’s atmospheric escape.

The Magnetospheric Multiscale mission investigates how the Sun's and Earth's magnetic fields connect and disconnect, explosively transferring energy from one to the other. This process occurs throughout the universe and is known as magnetic reconnection.

Two spacecraft originally part of the five comprising the THEMIS constellation, the THEMIS-ARTEMIS (Acceleration, Reconnection, Turbulence and Electrodynamics of Moon's Interaction with the Sun) duo were redirected to the Moon to provide the first 3D measurements of the Moon’s magnetic field to determine its regional influence on solar wind particles.

The Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites mission studies magnetic reconnection and its effects in Earth’s atmosphere. Magnetic reconnection occurs when activity from the Sun interacts with Earth’s magnetic field. 

Hinode explores the magnetic fields of the Sun to improve understanding of what powers the solar atmosphere and drives solar eruptions.

The Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph observes how solar material moves, gathers energy, and heats up as it travels through a little-understood region in the Sun's lower atmosphere.

On a mission to “touch the Sun,” NASA's Parker Solar Probe became the first spacecraft to fly through the corona — the Sun’s upper atmosphere — in 2021. 

The Solar Dynamics Observatory studies how solar activity is created and drives space weather, by monitoring the Sun’s interior, atmosphere, magnetic field, and energy output.

The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory was designed to study the Sun inside out. Launched in 1995 and scheduled to run until only 1998, it has continued collecting data, adding to scientists' understanding of our closest star, and making many new discoveries, including more than 5,000 comets.

An international cooperative mission between the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA, Solar Orbiter is a Sun-observing satellite with 10 science instruments, all designed to provide unprecedented insight into how our local star "works."

NASA’s Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory launched in 2006 with two nearly identical observatories to study the Sun and obtain stereoscopic observations revealing the 3D structure of the Sun’s largest coronal mass ejections. The STEREO-A spacecraft continues to study the Sun to this day and is a key source of unique space weather information.