Page 32 - All About Space 68 - 2017 UK

Mission to touch the Sun
Mission to touch the Sun

Great care has been taken in PSP member says…
designing the PSP, as it will have
to endure the harsh conditions “We've been waiting an awfully long time
of space before it even comes to go touch the Sun. It's the last major
close to the Sun region in the solar system to be visited
by a spacecraft, and it's an important
region, because the Sun is the centre of
the solar system, and our life depends
on it. All the planets get affected by it in
some way or another.”
Nicola Fox
Project scientist

particle detector, antennae and the edges of the
solar power generators peek around the edge of the “ These sensitive pieces of equipment have
TPS – the front face of which will reach nearly 1,400
degrees Celsius (2,552 degrees Fahrenheit). to go where no scientific instrument has
As the Parker Solar Probe sweeps around the
deep gravity well of the Sun, it will be accelerated gone before"
to speeds no other spacecraft has reached. Juno hit
almost 60 kilometres per second (133,000 miles per
hour), measured with respect to the Sun, which is NASA’s Parker Solar Probe will
certainly shifting. There are actually two spacecraft
that currently vie for the speed record title. Helios-B need to withstand…
was recorded at 98.9 kilometres per second (221,000
miles per hour) in January 1989, and is recognised by ON EARTH NEAR THE SUN
Guinness World Records as the fastest ever, but some
A temperature of 54 Temperatures between
argue that by the time it reached this speed, Helios-B degrees Celsius 500,000 and 1.9mn
was a dead hulk, and no longer really a spacecraft. degrees Celsius
For them, sister ship Helios-A remains champion, Radiation equivalent
hitting 59.3 kilometres per second (132,000 miles per Radiation equivalent
to 1,366 watts per to 649 kilowatts per
hour) in February 1975. These arguments will become metre squared metre squared
redundant before long, as the Parker Solar Probe will
comprehensively shatter the record. Sweeping around A speed of 28,968km/h A speed of 724,204km/h
the Sun, it will accelerate to an astonishing 200 (18,000mph) (450,000mph)
kilometers a second (450,000 miles per hour).
The Parker Solar Probe will launch during a 20-day Being bombarded by
window beginning on 31 July 2018, using one of the space particles travelling
most powerful rockets in NASA's arsenal: the Delta over 1236km/h (768mph)
IV in 'heavy' configuration will include an integrated Solar wind travelling between
third stage booster, powered by the workhorse Star 1.1mn km/h (683,508mph) and
48BV rocket motor that has been used on over 130 3.47mn km/h (2.15mn mph)
missions since the 1980s. This is necessary because Solar storms between 1,158,728 km/h
of the substantial 610kg mass of the spacecraft, (720,000 mph) and 5.8mn km/h (3.6
and the requirement for a big initial push to its first mn mph) © NASA
encounter with Venus just two months after launch.

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