NASA's Parker Solar Probe will make its next close approach to the Sun on Jan. 17, 2021, during its seventh science-gathering orbit around our star.
Parker Solar Probe Gears Up for Seventh Solar Pass

NASA's Parker Solar Probe will make its next close approach to the Sun on Jan. 17, 2021, during its seventh science-gathering orbit around our star.
By Sarah FrazierNASA's Goddard Space Flight Center A special collection of research in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics highlights the initial accomplishments of NASA's GOLD mission. GOLD, short for Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk, is an ultraviolet imaging spectrograph that observes Earth from its vantage point on a commercial communications satellite …
By Miles Hatfield NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center A new NASA study finds that our distant planetary neighbors, Uranus and Neptune, may have magnetic "seasons:" A time of the year when aurora glow brighter and atmospheric escape may quicken. Study authors Dan Gershman and Gina DiBraccio, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, …
To accommodate schedule changes due to precautions regarding COVID-19, the preliminary design review for NASA's Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe, or IMAP, has been moved from February to May 2021. Similarly, the launch readiness date is delayed from Oct. 1, 2024, to Feb. 1, 2025.
By Karen Fox NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/SDO Download this video This imagery captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory shows a solar flare and a subsequent eruption of solar material that occurred over the left limb of the Sun on November 29, 2020. From its foot point over the …
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, carrying the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite, launched at 9:17 a.m. PST (12:17 p.m. EST) on Nov. 21, 2020, from Space Launch Complex-4 at Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB) in California. Following launch, the SpaceX Falcon 9 first stage separated and returned to Earth for a vertical landing at VAFB. After …
Loud cheering can be heard from the launch control room as the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich solar arrays deploy, a signal is acquired and the satellite operates independently in low-Earth orbit.
The Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite has separated from the Falcon 9 second stage. The satellite's S-Band transmitter will be switched on and its attitude control system will be activated.
The Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite is in a coast phase until the second stage restarts to put the satellite in the proper trajectory. After the second stage burn, the satellite will separate and fly on its own.
The SpaceX Falcon 9 first stage returns to Earth and lands vertical at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Nov. 21, 2020.