Its the first of its kind mission, with the aim of monitoring the unpredictable and active Sun and help protect the Earth from its outbursts.
ESA Vigil will be the first of its kind. By keeping an eagle eye on the ‘side’ of the Sun, the spacecraft will stream a constant feed of near real-time data on potentially hazardous solar activity, before it rolls into view from Earth.
The mission will give us advance warning of oncoming solar storms and therefore more time to protect spacecraft in orbit, on the ground and explorers now and in the future, unshielded by Earth’s Magnetic Field and vulnerable to our star’s violent outbursts.