NASA will discuss its plans for the Solar Probe Plus soon (11 AM EDT, 3 PM UTC):
NASA will make an announcement about the agency's first mission to fly directly into our sun's atmosphere during an event at 11 a.m. EDT Wednesday, May 31, from the University of Chicago's William Eckhardt Research Center Auditorium. The event will air live on NASA Television and the agency's website.
Both the Solar Probe Plus and ESA's Solar Orbiter are planned to launch in 2018.
Update: They renamed Solar Probe Plus to "Parker Solar Probe" after Eugene Parker, a living scientist who developed the theory of solar wind.
Related Stories
NASA's Solar Probe Plus will travel extremely close to the Sun after years of repeated gravity assists from Venus. It is expected to reach a velocity of 200 km/s, becoming the fastest man-made object ever. The mission will study the Sun's magnetic fields, corona, solar wind, and nearby plasma:
The mission is designed to survive the harsh environment near the Sun, where the incident solar intensity is approximately 520 times the intensity at Earth orbit, by the use of a solar shadow-shield. The solar shield, at the front of the spacecraft, is made of reinforced carbon-carbon composite. The spacecraft systems, and the scientific instruments, are located in the umbra of the shield, where direct light from the sun is fully blocked. The primary power for the mission will be by use of a dual system of photovoltaic arrays. A primary photovoltaic array, used for the portion of the mission outside 0.25 AU, is retracted behind the shadow shield during the close approach to the Sun, and a much smaller secondary array powers the spacecraft through closest approach. This secondary array uses pumped-fluid cooling to maintain operating temperature.
The ESA's Solar Orbiter will orbit further from the Sun and at a high inclination, allowing it to capture imagery from the Sun's poles:
At nearly one-quarter of Earth's distance from the sun, Solar Orbiter will be exposed to sunlight 13 times more intense than what we feel on Earth. The spacecraft must also endure powerful bursts of atomic particles from explosions in the solar atmosphere," ESA said in a statement. "To withstand the harsh environment and extreme temperatures, Solar Orbiter must be well equipped. It will exploit new technologies being developed by ESA for the mission BepiColombo to Mercury, the planet closest to the sun. This includes high-temperature solar arrays and a high-temperature high-gain antenna."
Solar Orbiter is expected to last seven years, orbiting with an orbital inclination of about 25 degrees relative to the sun's equator. If the mission is extended, more gravity assists at Venus will be used to change the spacecraft's inclination to 34 degrees. This will allow the spacecraft to pursue different science goals in the extended mission, ESA said.
While Solar Orbiter will approach the Sun at a distance of around 60 solar radii (0.284 au), Solar Probe Plus will approach as close as around 8.5 solar radii (0.04 au).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 31 2017, @03:33PM (3 children)
Why don't they just dump their presentation online, rather than always trying to do this old-school announcement-about-an-announcement government crap?
(Score: 2) by WizardFusion on Wednesday May 31 2017, @04:43PM
Well, if you don't have a pre-announcement about an announcement, they how will you know that the announcement is something you want to be interested in.!
People also like to have meetings about meetings. It makes them feel important when in fact they have nothing of value to a process.
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Wednesday May 31 2017, @11:32PM (1 child)
Unfortunately, NASA needs to build hype. You might think they are not a commercial business, but they need to advertise all the same to keep their brand name recognizable not only to Congress, but to young people whose talent they want to recruit. Hate them if you wish, they will keep doing cool shit with or without your approval, but only if they continue their current behavior.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 01 2017, @12:39AM
That's definitely the mantra of the governmentalist.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Thexalon on Wednesday May 31 2017, @03:57PM (2 children)
I can think of a lot of people that the world would be better off firing into the sun.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday May 31 2017, @05:22PM (1 child)
From my experience, that includes most politicians, corporate executives, police, car salesmen, churchgoers, telemarketers, and software developers.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday May 31 2017, @11:00PM
That settles it. I'm building a rocket.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DonkeyChan on Wednesday May 31 2017, @08:54PM
If they don't change the name to Project Icarus someone should be flogged.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 31 2017, @10:55PM (1 child)
The last item in
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker_Solar_Probe#Trajectory_and_mission [wikipedia.org]
notes[1]
[1] Submitter's link also redirects.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday May 31 2017, @11:50PM
I wrote the summary before they officially changed the name!
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]