Don Savage

Headquarters, Washington, DC September 17, 1998

(Phone: 202/358-1727)

Bill Steigerwald
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
(Phone: 301/286-5017)

Franco Bonacina
European Space Agency Headquarters, Paris, France
(Phone: 33-1-5369-7155)

RELEASE: 98-168

ENGINEERS SUCCESSFULLY REGAIN CONTROL OF SOHO SPACECRAFT

Spacecraft controllers successfully regained control of the

Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft yesterday
after sending a series of commands directing the spacecraft to
fire thrusters and turn its face and solar power panels fully
towards the Sun.

The SOHO flight operations team reported success in the

maneuver, which is called attitude recovery, at 2:29 p.m. EDT
Wednesday, the first time the joint European Space Agency (ESA)
and NASA spacecraft has been controlled from the ground since SOHO
spun out of control and communication was lost on June 24.

"It's a big step forward in our recovery plan for SOHO,"

says Dr. John Credland, ESA's head of scientific projects. "We
were never quite sure that we would manage to make the spacecraft
point back towards the Sun, which is essential for its proper
operation. I congratulate our joint ESA-NASA team, helped by our
industrial contractors, who have accomplished it."

"This is the best news we've had from SOHO in a long time,"
said Dr. George Withbroe, Director of the Sun-Earth Connection
science theme at NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. "Despite the
gloomy early days after the loss, we always stayed hopeful that
the resourceful people on the team could save the day. We're not
there yet -- we still have to see if the scientific instruments
survived. But this gives us reason to hope."

"Now we start a comprehensive check of all the spacecraft's

systems and scientific instruments," said Dr. Bernhard Fleck,
ESA's project scientist for SOHO. "We shall take our time and go
step by step, in consultation with the 12 scientific teams in
Europe and the United States, who provided the instruments. In
some cases the instruments have been through an ordeal of heat or
cold, with temperatures approaching plus or minus 100 degrees
Celsius (212 degrees Fahrenheit). But I'm cautiously optimistic
that SOHO can win back much of its scientific capacity for
observing the Sun."

SOHO operates at a special vantage point 1.5 million

kilometers (about one million miles) out in space, on the sunward
side of the Earth. The spacecraft was built in Europe and it
carries both American and European instruments, with international
science teams. NASA launched SOHO and has responsibility for
operations at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD.

After its launch on Dec. 2, 1995, SOHO revolutionized solar

science by its special ability to observe simultaneously the
interior and atmosphere of the Sun, and particles in the solar
wind and the heliosphere. Apart from amazing discoveries about
flows of gas inside the Sun, giant "tornadoes" of hot,
electrically charged gas, and clashing magnetic field-lines, SOHO
also proved its worth as the chief watchdog for the Sun, giving
early warning of eruptions that could affect the Earth.

In April 1998, SOHO's scientists celebrated two years of

successful operations and the decision of ESA and NASA to extend
the mission to 2003. The extension would enable SOHO to observe
intense solar activity, expected when the count of sunspots rises
to a maximum around the year 2000. It would remain the flagship
of a multinational fleet of solar spacecraft, including the
ESA/NASA Ulysses and Cluster II missions.

More details about the operations, and about SOHO in

general, can be found on the Web at:

http://sohowww.estec.esa.nl and http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov

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