The SECCHI experiment on STEREO

Abstract

The Sun Earth Connection Coronal and Heliospheric Investigation (SECCHI) developed for the NASA Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) mission is a suite of optical telescopes that will, for the first time, observe the entire inner heliosphere from the solar surface out to the vicinity of Earth from twin spacecraft. SECCHI was developed by an international consortium led by the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). The primary objective of the STEREO mission is to understand the Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) phenomenon, discovered in 1971, and most recently extensively observed by the NASA/ESA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). The SECCHI telescope suite is returning unprecedented views of the Sun and inner heliosphere. The SECCHI instruments on each of the two STEREO spacecraft observe CMEs from their initiation, through the corona, and into interplanetary space beyond the Earth's orbit. We present an overview of the development and early operations of the SECCHI experiment.