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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: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 03 2017, @07:42AM (1 child)
You mean "Two missions to the Oracle..."?
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Friday March 03 2017, @09:51AM
And the Poles are behind it?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 03 2017, @08:08AM (1 child)
Lorentz factor: γ = 1.00000018. That means that a second elapsing for the probe would be 180 nanoseconds longer in our frame of reference. That’s a long time in electronics terms, roughly a single cycle of a 5.5 MHz clock. It would be so obvious that you wouldn’t even need an atomic clock to be able to see it. Would be fascinating to see relativistic effects observed like this.
(Score: 2) by el_oscuro on Saturday March 04 2017, @05:35PM
Speed of Light: 299,792 km/s
Speed of probe: 200km/s
So this bad boy will be travelling slightly less 0.1% of the speed of light. At that speed you can probably just look out the window and *see* the phase shift. Your clock would be off by about 1 minute a day.
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(Score: 5, Insightful) by TheRaven on Friday March 03 2017, @11:30AM (1 child)
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday March 04 2017, @02:15PM
From the sunny-side-DOWN dept.
:)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 03 2017, @02:59PM (6 children)
Maybe there are at least some aspects of those missions that are somewhat true: for example, perhaps they do go as close to the Sun as possible, and they do get data; but why would they need to lie and proclaim that the Sun is a standing, continuous fusion reaction and that we are orbiting it. Can't they just readily share the data, all data, and nothing but the data? Why the CGI? Why the veils? Why the symbolism? No I am not in need of 'an expert' to 'explain it' to me, thanks. I'm paying them to do large scale projects and get me data, not explanations. Those people are becoming worse than pushy churches, they really feel the need to force their opinions down our throat.
(Score: 4, Informative) by nobu_the_bard on Friday March 03 2017, @03:43PM
Its part of needing to sell the project I assume, convince people they're getting their money's worth and that more projects are justified because of this incredible magical thing they're doing, not because of this Excel spreadsheet of fascinating data points.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday March 03 2017, @03:43PM (3 children)
-0 WTF
Is this some sort of bizarre flat-earth joke?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday March 03 2017, @04:38PM (2 children)
He's just pointing out that there's a conspiracy to make everyone believe "the science is settled" about heliocentrism (that the Earth supposedly orbits the Sun), when there's in fact no proof of this whatsoever.
/s
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 03 2017, @04:46PM (1 child)
He's just pointing out that there's a conspiracy to make everyone believe "the science is settled"
Though conspiracy is certainly part of it, most of it, in my opinion, has been made possible via careful compartmentalization and the way research is funded and propagandized. It is a continuous, ongoing process.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday March 03 2017, @05:40PM
To escape the scary influence of Big Sun, I have decided to move to TRAPPIST-1c.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 03 2017, @06:16PM
I want to know when they'll release the data gathered from the Todash darkness beyond the Antarctic ice wall.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Friday March 03 2017, @04:40PM (3 children)
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.
This sounds really dangerous. If this craft goes too fast, doing a slingshot maneuver around the Sun, it'll go back in time, and this could alter history.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 03 2017, @06:23PM
How do we know this isn't corrective action being taken by Temporal Investigations to attempt to prevent the Grays Sports Almanac from falling into the wrong hands? Sufficiently severe disruptions to the timeline did will have caused them to use some pretty desperate measures.
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Friday March 03 2017, @10:08PM (1 child)
If it goes back in time it'll just crash into itself from 5 minutes ago and never travel through time in the first place. Duh.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday March 03 2017, @10:14PM
Well, that's far more dangerous, because then that'll cause a paradox and destroy the whole universe.