The Helios Missions
A view of the orbits of Helios A & Helios B (aka Helios 1 & Helios 2) looking oblliquely from above the ecliptic plane.
In the days before Parker Solar Probe (PSP), the previous record-breaking spacecraft for speed and closest distance to the Sun were the two Helios probes, launched in the mid-1970s. Now with PSP re-entering the environment inward of the orbit of Mercury, data from these probes is being re-examined with newer tools and compared to the newer data.
A view of the orbits of Helios A & Helios B (aka Helios 1 & Helios 2) looking down from the ecliptic pole.
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio
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Visualizer
- Tom Bridgman (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)
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Writer
- Kathalina Tran (SGT)
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Technical support
- Laurence Schuler (ADNET Systems, Inc.)
- Ian Jones (ADNET Systems, Inc.)
Release date
This page was originally published on Thursday, April 4, 2019.
This page was last updated on Monday, January 6, 2025 at 12:13 AM EST.
Missions
This page is related to the following missions:Datasets used
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JPL/Horizon Orbital Ephemerides
ID: 597Planetary ephemerides
This dataset can be found at: http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/?horizons
See all pages that use this dataset -
DE 431
ID: 985Planetary ephemerides SPICE kernel
See all pages that use this dataset
Note: While we identify the data sets used on this page, we do not store any further details, nor the data sets themselves on our site.