SPARTAN 201: NASA's mission to explore the Sun's corona

A composite image of the solar corona on 1993 April 11 from SPARTAN 201-1 White Light Coronagraph (outermost), the High Altitude Observatory Mk. III coronagraph on Mauna Loa, Hawaii (middle), and the Yohkoh Soft X-Ray Telescope (innermost image)

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[New]The SPARTAN 201-5 science planning pages

These pages include images downlinked in near realtime from the white light coronagraph, as part of the technology demonstration of SPARTAN realtime telemetry.
[SPARTAN 201 decal] [SPARTAN 201-4 dgrappled]
SPARTAN 201-4 grappled by STS-87 astronauts

The United States Space Shuttle Columbia (OV-102) was not able to deploy SPARTAN 201-04, a small shuttle-launched and -retrieved satellite, whose mission is to study the origins of the solar wind, on 1997 November 21 during Shuttle mission STS-87. The two instruments of SPARTAN 201, the Ultraviolet Coronal Spectrometer and the White Light Coronagraph.

SPARTAN 201 has flown on three previous missions:

The 1994 September observations were coordinated with observations made by the Ulysses spacecraft and other space- and ground-based observatories. The SPARTAN 201-4 flight will be coordinated with observations made from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) , a mission of international cooperation between the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA. In particular, the SPARTAN UVCS will be used to determine the instrumental profile of the H I Lyman alpha line for the SOHO UVCS.

This work will require relatively long periods with fixed pointing, during which the SPARTAN White Light Coronagraph and the SOHO LASCO coronagraphs will search for short time-scale variability in electron-scattering corona.

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Text provided by Dr. Madhulika Guhathakurta of NASA Headquarters and Dr. Joseph B. Gurman, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
Web curator: Joseph B. Gurman

Responsible NASA official: Dr. Richard R. Fisher
Principal Investigator, SPARTAN 201 White Light Coronagraph
Director, Sun-Earth Connections Division
Office of Space Science
NASA Headquarters

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, MD 20771

Last revised - J.B. Gurman