The STEREO mission will place 2 identical spacecraft in orbit around the Sun, each of which will drift away from the Earth at a rate of 22 degrees per year, providing our first 3-D view of the Sun. This unique stereoscopic viewpoint will help us to determine the origins of CMEs and follow their evolution through the inner heliosphere. It will be particularly important in removing some of the difficulties currently associated with observing CMEs that are directed towards the Earth.
STEREO comprises 4 instrument packages:
SECCHI is being developed by an international consortium led by PI Russ Howard of the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), and comprises a suite of remote sensing instruments including 2 white-light coronagraphs (COR1 and COR2), an EUV imager (EUVI) and a wide angle imaging system for viewing the inner heliosphere (HI1 and HI2).
The Heliospheric Imager (HI1 and HI2) is being developed by a UK-led team
involving the University of Birmingham and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory,in collaboration with
Centre Spatial de Liege, Belgium, and the Naval Research Laboratory, USA. The PI is
Richard Harrison.