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On the morning of Tuesday, April 17, 2018, crews from United Launch Alliance raised the 170-foot tall Delta IV Heavy launch vehicle – the largest and most powerful rocket currently used by NASA – at Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. This Delta IV Heavy will carry Parker Solar Probe, humanity's first mission to the Sun's corona, on its journey to explore the Sun's atmosphere and the solar wind. Launch is scheduled for approximately 4 a.m. EDT on July 31, 2018.

The Thermal Protection System — also known as the heat shield — for NASA's Parker Solar Probe arrived in Titusville, Florida, on April 18, 2018, bringing it one step closer to reuniting with the spacecraft that will be the first to "touch" the Sun.

At Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, the United Launch Alliance Atlas V booster and Centaur upper stage are lifted for positioning on the launch pad at Space Launch Complex 3. The rocket will launch NASA's Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, or InSight, spacecraft for its trip to Mars. While processing …

NASA's Parker Solar Probe has arrived in Florida to begin final preparations for its launch to the Sun, scheduled for July 31, 2018.

The Delta IV Heavy will launch NASA's upcoming Parker Solar Probe mission in July 2018. The mission will perform the closest-ever observations of a star when it travels through the Sun's atmosphere, called the corona. The probe will rely on measurements and imaging to revolutionize our understanding of the corona and the Sun-Earth connection.

Parker Solar Probe has completed its space environment testing at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and was lifted out of the thermal vacuum chamber on March 24, 2018, after just over two months inside.

Inside the Astrotech processing facility at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, NASA's Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, or InSight, spacecraft has been mounted on to a rotation fixture for testing. InSight is scheduled to launch May 5, atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket for its trip to Mars. …

New Horizons is in good health and cruising closer each day to our next encounter, an end-of-the-year flyby of the Kuiper Belt object (KBO) 2014 MU69 (or "MU69" for short). Currently, the spacecraft is hibernating while the mission team plans the MU69 flyby. During hibernation, three of the instruments on New Horizons—SWAP, PEPSSI and SDC—collect …

On Wednesday, Jan. 17, NASA's Parker Solar Probe was lowered into the 40-foot-tall thermal vacuum chamber at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The spacecraft will remain in the chamber for about seven weeks, coming out in mid-March for final tests and packing before heading to Florida. Parker Solar Probe is scheduled to launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center on July 31, 2018, on a Delta IV Heavy launch vehicle.

Download images and video in HD formats from NASA Goddard's Scientific Visualization Studio To protect NASA's Parker Solar Probe from the intense heat of the Sun's atmosphere, scientists and engineers developed a revolutionary Thermal Protection System. This heat shield, made of carbon-carbon composite material, will experience temperatures of almost 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit as the spacecraft …