The Yohkoh Mission is a Japanese Solar mission with US and UK
collaborators. It was launched into Earth orbit in August of 1991 and provided
valuable data about the Sun's corona and
flares. The satellite carried four instruments - a Soft X-ray Telescope (SXT), a Hard
X-ray Telescope (HXT), a Bragg Crystal Spectrometer (BCS), and a Wide Band Spectrometer
MSFC Solar Physics Group members Ron
Moore, Jason Porter, David Falconer, and Alphonse Sterling have been involved in
of these images to determine the nature of the magnetic connections in the solar
atmosphere and characteristics of flare-like activity.
Yohkoh suffered a spacecraft failure in December 2001 that has
put an end to this mission. During the solar eclipse of December 14th the
spacecraft lost pointing and the batteries discharged. The spacecraft
operators were unable to command the satellite to point toward the sun.