NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, the first mission to fly into the Sun’s corona, has successfully completed a review that approves the beginning of the spacecraft’s environmental testing.
Launch Window: July 31 – August 19, 2018
In this time-lapse video taken on September 21, the thermal protection system (TPS) for NASA's Parker...
Parker Solar Probe will swoop to within 4 million miles of the sun's surface, facing heat and radiation like no spacecraft before it. Launching in 2018, Parker Solar Probe will provide new data on solar activity and make critical contributions to our ability to forecast major space-weather events that impact life on Earth.
Parker Solar Probe is an extraordinary and historic mission exploring arguably the last and most important region of the solar system to be visited by a spacecraft to finally answer top-priority science goals for over five decades.
But we don't do this just for the basic science.
One recent study by the National Academy of Sciences estimated that without advance warning a huge solar event could cause two trillion dollars in damage in the US alone, and the eastern seaboard of the US could be without power for a year.
In order to unlock the mysteries of the corona, but also to protect a society that is increasingly dependent on technology from the threats of space weather, we will send Parker Solar Probe to touch the sun.
We live in the sun's atmosphere! This mission will provide insight on a critical link in the Sun-Earth connection. Data will be key to understanding and, perhaps, forecasting space weather.
We need to go so close because:
The concept for a "Solar Probe" dates back to "Simpson's Committee" of the Space Science Board (National Academy of Sciences, 24 October 1958).
The need for extraordinary knowledge of sun from remote observations, theory, and modeling to answer the questions:
The answers to these questions have been of top priority in multiple Roadmaps and Decadal Surveys.
Physics of the corona and inner heliosphere connect the activity of the sun to the environment and technological infrastructure of Earth will:
Until we can explain what is going on up close to the sun, we will not be able to accurately predict space weather effects that can cause havoc at Earth.
NASA's historic Parker Solar Probe (SPP) mission will revolutionize our understanding of the Sun. SPP will swoop closer to the Sun’s surface than any spacecraft before it, facing brutal heat and radiation conditions.
The spacecraft will come as close as 3.9 million miles (6.2 million kilometers) to the Sun, well within the orbit of Mercury and more than seven times closer than any spacecraft has come before.
To perform these unprecedented investigations, the spacecraft and instruments will be protected from the Sun’s heat by a 4.5-inch-thick (11.43 cm) carbon-composite shield, which will need to withstand temperatures outside the spacecraft that reach nearly 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit (1,377 degrees Celsius).
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NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, the first mission to fly into the Sun’s corona, has successfully completed a review that approves the beginning of the spacecraft’s environmental testing.
NEVER look at the sun directly without proper solar glasses or filters -- you can severely damage your eyes.
Learn more »In this time-lapse video taken on September 21, the thermal protection system (TPS) for NASA's Parker Solar Probe spacecraft is shown during installation at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. This 4.5-inch (11.43 cm) thick, eight-foot (2.3 m) diameter shield protects the spacecraft and its instruments against the intense heat and energy of the Sun's corona, through which the spacecraft will fly on a mission of extreme exploration. The TPS will soon be removed and proceed on a separate integration and testing path from the main spacecraft, reuniting with it just before launch in summer 2018. The TPS is made of a carbon-carbon composite material with a special outer coating that will reach temperatures of nearly 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit (1,377 Celsius). The spacecraft will come as close as 3.9 million miles (6.2 million kilometers) to the Sun, closer than any spacecraft before, and will fly through the Sun's outer atmosphere, knows as the corona, where temperatures are more than one million degrees. Parker Solar Probe will revolutionize our understanding of the Sun and help explain mysteries of how stars work, and how space weather affects life and technology here on Earth.
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In this interactive, 3D simulation of the total eclipse of August 21st, 2017, you can see a view of the eclipse from anywhere on the planet.
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