THE HISTORY OF THE SOHO MISSION

The roots of the SOHO mission and the story leading to the comprehensi ve observatory that the spacecraft is today are summarised here, Now f ully operational in its halo orbit around the first Lagrangian point ( L1) between the Earth and the Sun, SOHO is providing the international scientific community with the unique opportunity, and also challenge, of understanding the Sun and heliosphere as one complex, global syste m, It is a superb tool with which to investigate our daylight star and its circumstellar environment, from the Sun's centre, through its vis ible surface and tenuous corona, and out into the heliosphere to dista nces corresponding to more than ten times the orbital distance of the Earth.