Although a comet hasn't been seen in the SDO field of view since 2012, we are always waiting for the next comet to appear. Today we will run our comet off-point test to make sure we are ready for the rapid response that is necessary. Starting at 1800 UTC (2:00 pm ET) SDO will point up and to the left of the Sun's center for 15 minutes. We will then return to solar-center pointing and hold in inertial mode for 15 minutes, allowing the attitude control engineers to run further tests. By 1850 UTC (2:50 pm ET) SDO will return to normal science mode.
This test assures that the SDO Team will be able to point SDO at an incoming comet with a 24-48 hour notice from the Sungrazer Comet Watchers.

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