Authors: Donald M. Hassler (SwRI), Sarah E Gibson (NCAR), Jeffrey S Newmark (GSFC), Nicholas A. Featherstone (SwRI), Lisa Upton (SwRI), Nicholeen M Viall (GSFC), J Todd Hoeksema (Stanford), Frederic Auchere (IAS), Aaron Birch (MPS), Doug Braun (NWRA), Paul Charbonneau (U. Montreal), Robin Colannino (NRL), Craig DeForest (SwRI), Mausumi Dikpati (NCAR), Cooper Downs (PSI), Nicole Duncan (Ball), Heather Alison Elliott (SwRI), Yuhong Fan (NCAR), Silvano Fineschi (INAF), Laurent Gizon (MPS), Sanjay Gosain (NSO), Louise Harra (PMOD), Brad Hindman (U. Colorado), David Berghmans (ROB), Susan T Lepri (U. Mich.), Jon Linker (PSI), Mark B. Moldwin (U. Mich), Andres Munoz-Jaramillo (SwRI), Dibyendu Nandy (IISER), Yeimy Rivera (CfA), Jesper Schou (MPS), Barbara Thompson (GSFC), Marco Velli (UCLA), Thomas N. Woods (LASP), Junwei Zhao (Stanford)

Solaris is a transformative Solar Polar Discovery-class mission concept to address crucial outstanding questions that can only be answered from a polar vantage. Solaris will image the Sun’s poles from 75° latitude, providing new insight into the workings of the solar dynamo and the solar cycle, which are at the foundation of our understanding of space weather and space climate. Solaris will also provide enabling observations for improved space weather research, modeling and prediction, revealing a unique, new view of the corona, coronal dynamics and CME eruptions from above.

The Solaris mission design is an expanded/enhanced version of the mission design from the MIDEX Phase A study of the same name. Solaris includes both remote sensing and in-situ instruments that are essential to address fundamental questions that can only be answered from a polar perspective. Solaris’ ~10 yr mission covers the solar cycle and achieves multiple solar polar passes using a simple, ballistic trajectory. Solaris is ready to go now, moving Heliophysics forward at a critical time when models and computing power are ideally suited to capitalize on new polar observations. Solaris uses existing technology and can stand alone as a single spacecraft mission targeting questions that cannot wait, or act as the first element of a disaggregated constellation mission.