The Solaris Solar Polar Mission: Exploring one of the last Unexplored Regions of the Solar System

The solar poles are one of the last unexplored regions of the solar system. Although Ulysses flew over the poles in the 1990s, it did not have remote sensing instruments onboard to probe the Sun's polar magnetic field or surface/sub-surface flows. I will discuss Solaris, a proposed Solar Polar MIDEX mission to fly over the solar poles at 75 degrees inclination to address key outstanding, breakthrough problems in solar physics, & fill holes in our scientific understanding that will not be addressed by current or planned future missions. Such a small, focused, "paradigm-breaking" mission is achievable now with existing launchers and technology, & is enabled by miniaturized instrument technology such as the Compact Doppler Magnetograph (CDM), developed for Solaris to provide magnetic field & Doppler velocity measurements in a small (15kg) package. Solaris will also provide enabling observations for space weather research & stimulate future research through new unanticipated discoveries.