November 28, 2012

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com Your Universe Online

The International Space Station will be keeping its SOLAR instrument this weekend pointed towards the sun for a better view.

The European Space Agencys SOLAR instrument was first installed on ESAs Columbus laboratory module in February 2008. It will be celebrating its fifth year next year.

That is quite an achievement, Nadia This, operations engineer at the Belgian User Support and Operations Centre that controls SOLAR, said in a statement. The instrument was designed to work for only 18 months.

The instrument needs to be in direct view of the Sun in order to help snag measurements, but the Space Stations normal orbit obscures the view for two weeks every month.

We want to record a complete rotation of the Sun and that takes around 25 days, Nadia said in the statement.

In order to do this, the station will be moving its orbit, which will involve many factors aside from calculating the correct orbit.

ESA said communication antennas need to be reoriented to stay in contact with Earth and other scientific experiments must be adjusted.

All five Space Station partners were involved in some high-level discussions in order to get the go-ahead for the orbit positioning.

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Space Station Turning Towards Sun For Experiment