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SOOP coordination - Solar Orbiter
Roadmap for SOOP coordinators
You have been assigned as a SOOP coordinator in the next RSWs. What's next?
- Your name + email address should have been collected and is displayed in a shared spreadsheet (details sent by email). If you have not heard from the ESA Solar Orbiter team, please reach out.
- A meeting will be organised after the executive SWT for a placement of your SOOP timeline, called the "MLP refinement planning" meeting. It is necessary to attend this meeting as decisions on the timings of your SOOP and placement on the orbit are made then. In order to prepare this meeting, have in mind the constraints necessary to effectively run your SOOP. You can also review the SOOP pages for further information.
- Following the meeting, you can request access to the SOOP Kitchen planning tool. Please contact the SOC team.
- This is the tool that is used to place your RS instruments observation blocks with details on the operations of each instrument to generate an estimation on the telemetry. You will be given a few months to:
- rethink/redesign your SOOP if the timeline given to your SOOP differs from your original plan (e.g. due to operational constraints)
- provide further information on the SOOP page related to your SOOP
- contact the instrument POCs (see the SOOPs Coordinators + POCs mailing list) to discuss the details of the instrument operations (cadence, FOVs, lines for spectroscopy, ...). This is also a good time to start thinking about any other coordinated observations you would want to have (e.g. IRIS, Hinode, ground-based observations).
- ~2 months before the LTP start, you will need to attend the Science Operations Working Group (SOWG). This is a crucial meeting where your role will be to guard the consistency of the SOOP and the coordination between each of the instrument contributions, while the instrument timelines are being filled by the instrument teams.
Are you requesting support from other observatories?
- Following the SOWG, you will have up to a month to prepare your request for the Hinode Observing Plan (HOP) if you are requesting support from the Hinode teams. The list of prior SO-HOPs are listed on the following page: https://www.isas.jaxa.jp/home/solar/hinode_op/hop_list.php. SOOP coordinators can request to rerun a prior SO-HOP, if there are only dates and times to update, without having to prepare a new submission. The list of contacts for Hinode instrument teams can be found here (confluence access needed). To prepare a new HOP submission, please use this link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeQ0l38aMvCXFD-MJu_JXl-ek-cV2qcAy6AI6hWgAHyGGNXNQ/viewform.
- In the same time frame, if you are requesting support from the IRIS mission, please send your suggestions to Miho Janvier so that the requests can be collated and sent to the IRIS team.
- Currently, ground-based observatories (DKIST, Canary Islands observatories (Themis, Greggor, SST), ALMA, Big Bear Solar Observatory, LOFAR...) are happy to support Solar Orbiter whenever possible, but this is a case-by-case situation. You are welcome to reach out directly to the observatories via the list of contacts (confluence access needed) and let Miho know.
Up to ~2 weeks before your SOOP runs: close discussions with the instruments teams
- Two weeks before your SOOP is run during the so-called "short-term planning", instrument teams will send their instrument commanding to SOC and MOC to be uploaded to the spacecraft.
- Instruments teams may contact you prior to this cut-off line in case some tweaks are necessary. No changes (e.g. on timings) can be made after the operation requests are sent.
Your SOOP is ready to be run! Are you following a specific target?
- Depending on the SOOP you have proposed, your science target may need a specific pointing (e.g. slow solar wind source, active region). In such a case, as a SOOP coordinator, you will need to attend the pointing decision meetings. In general, these meetings are held 2 days prior to your target being observed. You will need to follow the procedures described here (confluence access needed, please reach out if you cannot access the document) to use the JHelioviewer tool and provide the coordinates of your science target. If your science target includes a connection to a specific point in the heliosphere (e.g. Earth, Solar Orbiter, PSP), then a member of the Modelling and Data Analysis Working Group (MADAWG) will be present to provide you with information on the connectivity at the time of the pointing decision meeting.
A note on data latency
- The data latency may be quite high on this mission, depending on the location in the orbit the SOOP was scheduled. As a rule of thumb, data taken when we are close to earth will come down in a few days max, while data taken at the far side of the sun may take up to 2-3 months to be retrieved.
Your SOOP was run, and you are now working on the science results: what's next?
- Some instrument teams are making available "quicklooks" of the data so that you can check their availability.
This is the case for SPICE, where one can check these quicklooks in the following link.
- As courtesy for future SOOP coordinators, and for the community at large, you will be requested to update the SOOP pages with the outcomes of your SOOP. This can be a link to the papers, science nuggets, or any activity that will be using your SOOP data. Please inform the ESA Solar Orbiter team of any information concerning your SOOP so this information can appear on the public SOOP Summary page.
4 years of SOOPs: SOOPs review forum
Presentations
Intro/Outro
SOOP coordinators feedback meetings
29 September 2025: 6th SOOP Coordinators Feedback Meeting (LTP19)
17 February 2025: 5th SOOP Coordinators Feedback Meeting (LTP17)
27 August 2024: 4th SOOP Coordinators Feedback Meeting (LTP15)
6 February 2024: 3rd SOOP Coordinators Feedback Meeting (LTP13)
5 September 2023: 2nd SOOP Coordinators Feedback Meeting (LTP11)
9 December 2022: 1st SOOP Coordinators Feedback Meeting (LTP6 and LTP9)
Interactive SOOPs Summary Table
Useful links for SOOP coordinators
SPICE quicklooks: SPICE Pre-analysis git page