NASA Solar probe will begin transmitting close up analysis of the Sun starting in December

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe launched from Florida Sunday to begin its journey to the Sun, where it will undertake a landmark mission. The spacecraft will transmit its first science observations in December.

The Solar probe is the size of a small car and was launched on a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy.

Over the next two months, Parker Solar Probe will fly towards Venus, performing its first Venus gravity assist in early October – a maneuver a bit like a handbrake turn – that whips the spacecraft around the planet, using Venus’s gravity to trim the spacecraft’s orbit tighter around the Sun. This first flyby will place Parker Solar Probe in position in early November to fly as close as 15 million miles from the Sun – within the blazing solar atmosphere, known as the corona – closer than anything made by humanity has ever gone before.

Throughout its seven-year mission, Parker Solar Probe will make six more Venus flybys and 24 total passes by the Sun, journeying steadily closer to the Sun until it makes its closest approach at 3.8 million miles. At this point, the probe will be moving at roughly 430,000 miles per hour, setting the record for the fastest-moving object made by humanity.

9 thoughts on “NASA Solar probe will begin transmitting close up analysis of the Sun starting in December”

  1. Those RS-68 engines are REALLY nice…. rocket is obsolete though, right? Even someone who doesn’t worship Elon The Musk and doesn’t drink kool-aid has to admit that Delta4 ain’t got nuffin on the Falcon platform.

  2. Those RS-68 engines are REALLY nice…. rocket is obsolete though right? Even someone who doesn’t worship Elon The Musk and doesn’t drink kool-aid has to admit that Delta4 ain’t got nuffin on the Falcon platform.

  3. Those RS-68 engines are REALLY nice…. rocket is obsolete though, right? Even someone who doesn’t worship Elon The Musk and doesn’t drink kool-aid has to admit that Delta4 ain’t got nuffin on the Falcon platform.

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