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.)
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.
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.