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Parker Solar Probe

Viewing Posts from April 2018

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    Faraday Cup Bests Sun Simulator

    You don't get to swim in the Sun's atmosphere unless you can prove you belong there. And Parker Solar Probe's Faraday cup, a key sensor on the spacecraft, earned its stripes on April 19 by enduring testing in a homemade contraption designed to simulate the Sun.

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    Safe in the Shadow: Making Sure Solar Probe’s Instruments Keep Cool

    A spacecraft is held at an approximately 45 degree angle on a stand inside a clean room.

    NASA's Parker Solar Probe is rotated down to a horizontal position during pre-launch processing and testing on April 10, 2018, at Astrotech Space Operations in Titusville, Florida, just outside Kennedy Space Center. Once horizontal, the integration and testing team will measure the alignment of the heat shield mounting points with respect to the spacecraft structure. This is done to assure that the umbra (or shadow) cast by the heat shield – called the Thermal Protection System – protects the spacecraft and instruments.

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    Parker Solar Probe’s Launch Vehicle Rises at Space Launch Complex 37

    A rocket is angled at about 45 degrees, in the middle of the process of being raised from laying horizontally to standing vertically.

    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.

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    Heat Shield Arrives in Florida

    A clean room. In the foreground, a white metal shipping container. In the background, the Parker Solar Probe spacecraft.

    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.

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