The spacecraft that TRACE works most closely with is the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). SOHO is a cooperative mission between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The spacecraft weighs nearly two tons and stretches 25 feet across with its solar panels extended. SOHO was launched on December 2, 1995 and was put into a halo orbit around the L1 Lagrangian point on February 14, 1996. L1 is about 1.5 million kilometers out in space on the sunward side of the Earth, where the gravitaional pulls of the Earth and the Sun are in balance. From this vantage point, SOHO is able to observe the Sun from deep down in its core out to 32 solar diameters, 24 hours a day with an angular resolution of 10 arcsec. It carries twelve state-of-the-art instruments designed to meet the mission's three principal scientific objectives: improved understanding if the solar interior, the heating mechanisms of the solar corona, and the solar wind and its acceleration processes. To learn more about SOHO and SOHO science click SOHO.

To learn about some other solar missions click on any of the links below:

	YOHKOH
	NRL/CSL/IAS EIT rocket flight on October 16, 1997 to help calibrate the SOHO Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging telescope (EIT)
	NASA Goddard Solar EUV Rocket Telescope and Spectrograph (SERTS) rocket flight on November 18, 1997
	Living With A Star Program
	SPARTAN 201
	ACE
	Ulysses
	SMEX
	ISTP Program

NRL HRTS flight of September 30, 1997

	Big Bear Solar Observatory
	La Palma in the Canary Islands
	National Solar Observatory Sacramento Peak
	National Solar Observatory Kitt Peak