Page 31 - All About Space 68 - 2017 UK

Mission to touch the Sun

PSP member says…
Thermal protection system
The spacecraft is fitted with a "This one is probably the most complicated
11.5-centimetre thick shield made of mission we've ever done. It's also by far the
carbon, which can withstand almost coolest. A few months in, we'll start taking
1,400 degrees Celsius and allows science we haven't gotten before."
instruments to operate at about Jim Kinnison
room temperature. Mission system engineer

Wide-field imager
The Parker Solar Probe will be
equipped with telescopes to take We will be able to investigate the
images of the corona and the Sun’s solar corona, which is only visible to
inner heliosphere. us from Earth during a total eclipse

Solar array winds
The solar probe’s panels will power
the spacecraft on its journey
and will then retract when it
gets close to the Sun. It will also
ensure that panel power levels and
temperatures don’t fluctuate.

"The speed of the waves
will go up with the higher

densities and stronger
magnetic fields” Dr Adam Szabo

measured in cycles per second, an Alfvén oscillates of the corona, the solar wind and shocks as they pass
just once in about four hours, at something like the spacecraft will be made by the Wide-field Imager
0.00007Hz. The wavelength is correspondingly long, for Solar Probe (WISPR). The Fields Experiment will
at around 120,000 kilometres (74,565 miles) or ten make direct measurements of electric, magnetic
times the Earth's diameter. The PSP's mission is to and radio emissions, as well as measuring dust by
detect and record these waves, deploying four main recording voltage spikes when specks of matter hit
experiments in its search for the transition zone. the antenna.
The Solar Wind Electrons Alphas and Protons These sensitive pieces of equipment have to go
(SWEAP) investigation will count electrons, protons where no scientific instrument has gone before, and
and helium ions in the solar wind, actually catching consequently the PSP employs radical innovations
some of them for direct analysis on board the probe. to protect them. Most obvious is the 2.4m-diameter
The acceleration of these particles and ions will be (7.87ft) carbon composite heat shield or Thermal
measured by an experiment called the Integrated Protection System (TPS), which acts like a parasol The solar probe launches in July or August 2018 © NASA
Science Investigation of the Sun, or ISIS. 3D images to shade the spacecraft from the inferno. Only the from Cape Canaveral

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