Skylab was built on the technology derived from the Gemini and Apollo projects. It was America's first experimental space station, designed so that humans could live and work in space for long periods. It was an Earth orbiting science laboratory, determined to expand our knowledge of solar astronomy from the perfect vantage point. Skylab completed nearly 2,000 hours of scientific and medical experiments, including eight solar experiments. Mounted on top of the vehicle, the automatic remote solar experiment module photographed a solar flare erupting from the sun's surface in 1974. The Sun's coronal holes were discovered by Skylab's observations.

NASA's Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO) satellites are two nearly identical observatories. Launched in 2006, the probes are analysing the sun for the first time in 3-D. The mission scientists hope that their revolutionary imaging technique will discover the cause and mechanisms behind coronal mass ejections (CME). In turn, space weather forecasting will improve, alerting us to Earth-directed solar ejections, the severest of which caused an enormous blackout in Canada in 1989. Extreme solar weather is illustrated by exquisite aurora, borealis in the northern hemisphere and australis in the southern hemisphere. But magnetic storms also affect satellites, radio communications and power systems.