Mission Centre SOLAR

Facility Responsible Centre (FRC)

In the frame of the ISS Project, the B.USOC will be a Facility Responsible Centre (FRC) for the SOLAR experiment (e.g. SOLSPEC, SOL-ACES and SOVIM) on the Columbus External Payload Facility.

A Facilty Responsible Centre (FRC) is delegated the overall responsibility (by ESA) for a payload on board the Station. Its functions focus on payload systems aspects and are related to all phases of payload operations, i.e. pre-flight activities, in-flight operation and post-flight activities.

Three space science instruments will be combined in the SOLAR Monitoring Observatory. These three complementary instruments will measure the solar spectral irradiance with unprecedented accuracy across almost the whole spectrum: 17-3000 nm. This range carries 99% of the Sun's energy emission.

Apart from the contributions to solar and stellar physics, knowledge of the solar energy flux (and its variations) entering the Earth's atmosphere is of great importance for atmospheric modelling, atmospheric chemisty and climatology.

The three instruments are: SOVIM, SOLSPEC and SOL-ACES. They will be mounted on the ESA-developed Course Pointing Device (CPD) with a pointing accuracy of the order of 1o to compensate for ISS motions.The fourth instrument, the Sky Polarisation Observatory, will be acomodated separately.