The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) was designed to study the internal structure of the sun, its extensive outer atmosphere, and the origin of the solar wind. The SOHO spacecraft was built in Europe by an industry team under the overall management of the European Space Agency. European and American scientists provided the 12 instruments on SOHO. NASA was responsible for the launch and is now responsible for mission operations, with mission control based at Goddard Space Flight Center. SOHO was launched in December 1995.