SDO - Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics

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SDO

Solar Dynamics Observatory

Watching the Sun in multiple wavelengths

The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) is the first mission to be launched for NASA’s Living With a Star Program, a program designed to understand the causes of solar variability and its impacts on Earth. SDO is designed to help us understand the Sun’s influence on Earth and near-Earth space by studying the solar atmosphere on small scales of space and time and in many wavelengths simultaneously.

Mission Class:

Larger Missions

Mission Status:

Current

LASP Roles:

Research, Instruments, Data, Mission Operations

Science Target:

Sun

Mission Focus:

Solar Irradiance, Solar Physics, Space Weather

Primary Mission Site:

https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/

LASP Mission Site:

https://lasp.colorado.edu/eve/

Launch date: February 11, 2010
Prime mission: 5 years
Extended mission: 2030

Lead institute: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Partners: University of Southern California, Naval Research Laboratory, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Virginia Tech, NOAA/Space Weather Prediction Center, Space Environment Technologies, CIRES/NOAA, Utah State University

SDO will help us to understand the mechanisms of solar variability by observing how the magnetic field is generated and structured and how this stored magnetic energy is released into the heliosphere and geospace. The goals of SDO are to:

Understand how magnetic fields appear, distribute, and disappear from their origin in the solar interior
Understand the magnetic topologies that give rise to rapid high-energy release processes
Study and gauge the dynamic processes which influence space weather phenomena
Study the variations in irradiance and solar structure which occur on short timescales, as well as over the solar cycle

LASP provided the Extreme Ultraviolet Variability Experiment (EVE) instrument designed to measure the solar extreme ultraviolet (EUV) irradiance.