Solar Orbiter is the European Space Agency’s mission designed to “explore the Sun-heliosphere connection”. The UK is making a substantial contribution to the provision of remote sensing and in situ instrumentation for Solar Orbiter. UK scientists are thus going to be well placed to work on the “linkage” or “connection” science at the heart of the Solar Orbiter mission, in which the remote sensing and in situ observations are used together to address the mission’s science objectives

Here we briefly review the capabilities of the instruments, and in the context of one or two of the primary objectives we explore emerging ideas about how to make use of the instruments while working within the practical constraints associated with operating a spacecraft in the inner heliosphere.