Heliophysics Sentinels 2017

There have been few changes since the 2015 Earth-Orbiting Heliophysics Fleet . As of summer 2017, here's a tour of the NASA Heliophysics fleet from the near-Earth satellites out to the Voyagers beyond the heliopause. The satellite orbits are color coded for their observing program: Magenta: TIM (Thermosphere, Ionosphere, Mesosphere) observations Yellow: solar observations and imagery Cyan: Geospace and magnetosphere Violet: Heliospheric observations Near-Earth Fleet: Hinode : Observes the Sun in multiple wavelengths up to x-rays. SVS page RHESSI : Observes the Sun in x-rays and gamma-rays. SVS page TIMED : Studies the upper layers (40-110 miles up) of Earth's atmosphere. SVS page SORCE : Monitors solar intensity across a broad range of the electromagnetic spectrum. AIM : Images and measures noctilucent clouds. SVS page Van Allen Probes : Two probes moving along the same orbit designed to study the impact of space weather on Earth's radiation belts. SVS page TWINS : Two Wide-Angle Imaging Neutral-Atom Spectrometers are two probes observing the Earth with neutral atom imagers. IRIS : Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph is designed to take high-resolution spectra and images of the region between the solar photosphere and solar atmosphere. SVS page Geosynchronous Fleet: SDO : Solar Dynamics Observatory keeps the Sun under continuous observation at 16 megapixel resolution. SVS page Geospace Fleet: Geotail : Conducts measurements of electrons and ions in the Earth's magnetotail. SVS page Magnetospheric Multi-scale (MMS) : This is a group of four satellites which fly in formation to measure how particles and fields in the magnetosphere vary in space and time. SVS page THEMIS : This is a fleet of three satellites to study how magnetospheric instabilities produce substorms . Two of the original five satellites were moved into lunar orbit to become ARTEMIS. SVS page IBEX: The Interstellar Boundary Explorer measures the flux of neutral atoms from the heliopause. SVS page Lunar Orbiting Fleet: ARTEMIS : Two of the THEMIS satellites were moved into lunar orbit to study the interaction of the Earth's magnetosphere with the Moon. SVS page Sun-Earth Lagrange Point One Fleet: The L1 point is a Lagrange Point between the Sun and the Earth. Spacecraft can orbit this location for continuous coverage of the Sun. SOHO : Studies the Sun with cameras and a multitude of other instruments. SVS page ACE : Measures the composition and characteristics of the solar wind . SVS page Wind : Measures particle flows and fields in the solar wind . SVS page Solar Orbiting Fleet: STEREO-A and STEREO-B : The two STEREO spaceraft orbit the Sun in roughly the same orbit as Earth. There have been some communications problems with STEREO-B since 2014. SVS page Interstellar Fleet: Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 : The two Voyager spaceraft orbit originally performed flybys of the outer planets of the solar system but continued to operate. They are now the most distant monitors of the plasma in the space between the stars. SVS page Major changes with earlier versions: L1 fleet, STEREOs and Voyagers added CINDI de-orbited and removed Camera move extended to out beyond the heliopause

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