The satellite built in Stevenage aiming to get up close to the sun

A satellite built in Stevenage is soon to be fired towards to the sun so we can learn more about our closest star and its impact on Earth.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has built the Solar Orbiter at Airbus in Hertfordshire and the satellite will soon be shipped to Munich in Germany for further testing ahead of launch.

Until now it's been very hard for scientists to understand how the sun creates and controls its environment.

This satellite will fly closer to the sun than the nearest planet, Mercury.

• Click to watch a report by ITV News Anglia's Elodie Harper

Solar Orbiter will investigate the connections and the coupling between the Sun and the heliosphere, a huge bubble in space created by the solar wind that extends far beyond our Solar System.

To get a close-up view of the Sun and to observe the solar wind before it becomes disrupted, Solar Orbiter will fly to within 45 million kilometres of the Sun, closer than Mercury.

Solar activity like flares can disrupt communication systems and power grids on Earth. It also dumps charged particles into our upper atmosphere to cause the aurora.

The satellite will image the poles for the first time, helping scientists understand how the Sun generates its magnetic field.

It will be able to almost match the Sun's rotation around its axis for several days, and so it will be able for the first time to see solar storms building up over an extended period from the same viewpoint.

Solar Orbiter is the ESA's Sun explorer mission dedicated to solar and heliospheric physics. It is part of ESA's Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 Programme.

The launch is planned for October 2018.

Solar Orbiter will take just under three-and-a-half years to reach its operational orbit around the Sun and the mission is due to last seven years.