RHESSI

Additional information RHESSI

Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI, originally High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager or HESSI) was a NASA solar flare observatory. It was the sixth mission in the Small Explorer program, selected in October 1997 and launched on 5 February 2002. Its primary mission was to explore the physics of particle acceleration and energy release in solar flares.
HESSI was renamed to RHESSI on 29 March 2002 in honor of Reuven Ramaty, a pioneer in the area of high energy solar physics. RHESSI was the first space mission named after a NASA scientist. RHESSI was built by Spectrum Astro for Goddard Space Flight Center and was operated by the Space Sciences Laboratory in Berkeley, California. The principal investigator from 2002 to 2012 was Robert Lin, who was succeeded by Säm Krucker.Following communication difficulties, RHESSI ceased science operations on 11 April 2018 at 01:50 UTC. RHESSI was decommissioned on 16 August 2018, and remains in a stable low-Earth orbit. However, since it has no means of propulsion, atmospheric drag will eventually pull the spacecraft into Earth's atmosphere, which may occur as early as 2022.