ESA and NASA Planning Two Solar Missons

NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) are looking to return to the Sun in the next decade. The ESA is looking at a 2017 launch of the Solar Orbiter probe which will orbit our closest star at around 20 million miles. NASA will launch the Solar Probe Plus later but it will orbit 4.3 million miles from the Sun, inside its corona.

The last probe to the sun was the Helios probe sent in the late 70s.