STEREO (Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory) is a 2-year NASA mission employing two nearly identical space-based observatories to provide the very first, 3-D "stereo" images of the sun to study ... the nature of coronal mass ejections. These powerful solar eruptions are a major source of the magnetic disruptions on Earth and a key component of space weather, which can greatly affect satellite operations, communications, power systems, the lives of humans in space, and global climate.
STEREO is the third mission in NASA's Solar Terrestrial Probes Program. The twin observatories launched aboard a single Boeing Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., on Oct. 25, 2006, at 8:52 p.m. EDT.
STEREO is sponsored by NASA Headquarters' Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's Solar Terrestrial Probes Program Office, in Greenbelt, Md., manages the mission, instruments and science center. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), in Laurel, Md., designed and built the spacecraft and will operate the twin observatories for NASA during the mission.
The two spacecraft are launched to drift slowly away from the Earth in opposite directions at about 10 degrees per year for the lagging spacecraft and 20 degrees per year for the leading one. Optimal longitudinal separation of about sixty degrees is achieved after two years. Afterwards the separation gradually increases beyond the design lifetime of two years with the possibility of extended mission observations at larger angles. Science instruments selected for STEREO include the Sun Earth Connection Coronal and Heliospheric Investigation (SECCHI) for extreme ultraviolet (EUV), white-light coronographic, and heliospheric imaging, the STEREO/WAVES (SWAVES) interplanetary radio burst tracker, the In situ Measurements of Particles and CME Transients (IMPACT) investigation for in-situ sampling the 3-D distribution and plasma characteristics of solar energetic particles and the interplanetary magnetic field, and the PLAsma and SupraThermal Ion and Composition (PLASTIC) experiment to measure elemental and charge composition of ambient and CME plasma ions. STEREO data recorded and stored onboard each spacecraft will be downlinked through the NASA Deep Space Network on a daily schedule. Real-time space weather data will be continuously transmitted through a separate beacon system to NASA and non-NASA receiving stations.