Mission ‘Touch Sun’: NASA To Launch Humanity’s First Mission To Explore A Star
Mission ‘Touch Sun’: NASA To Launch Humanity’s First Mission To Explore A Star NASA is all set to launch humanity’s first mission to explore a star! The $1.5 billion spacecraft aims to plunge into the Sun’s sizzling atmosphere. The car-sized Parker Solar Probe is scheduled to blast off on a Delta IV Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida early Saturday. The 65-minute launch window opens at 3:33 am (0733 GMT), and the weather forecast is 70 percent favorable for takeoff, NASA said. The probe’s main goal is to unveil the secrets of the corona, the unusual atmosphere around Sun. “The Parker Solar Probe will help us do a much better job of predicting when a disturbance in the solar wind could hit Earth,” said Justin Kasper, one of the project scientists and a professor at the University of Michigan. The probe is protected by an ultra-powerful heat shield that is just 4.5 inches thick (11.43 centimeters). The shield should enable the spacecraft to survive its close shave with the center of our solar system, coming within 3.83 million miles (6.16 million kilometers) of the Sun’s surface. The heat shield is built to withstand radiation equivalent up to about 500 times the Sun’s radiation here on Earth. “The sun is full of mysteries,” said Nicky Fox, project scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab. “We are ready. We have the perfect payload. We know the questions we want to answer.” -PTC News
