A Program for the Observations of the Sun and Heliosphere from Space 1980-1995

Abstract

Recent, fundamental discoveries of the phenomena of the Sun and of interplanetary space have led to a far broader definition of the term “solar physics” than was generally perceived a decade ago. The implications of this broadened definition of solar and heliospheric physics will be studied by essentially every solar space mission either now approved, or in the planning stage, for the period of 1980 to 1995. These missions include traditional Earth-orbiting satellites; Shuttle/Spacelab sortie missions, free flyers that transit the solar polar caps and probe the innermost corona (both frontier regions of the heliosphere), and finally possible semi-permanent orbiting platforms for advanced solar/heliosphere observations.