NASA's Parker solar probe gets a heat shield before the launch of August



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NASA has announced the final and complete installation of a heat shield on its Parker solar probe that will fly as close to the sun as possible. The heat shield is called the thermal protection system. (19459013) NASA | Johns Hopkins APL | Ed Whitman )

For the mission that will bring a spacecraft closer to the sun, NASA has equipped the Parker Solar Probe with a revolutionary heat shield technology. The historic spacecraft was equipped with a thermal protection system or TPS heat shield on June 27, NASA reported on Thursday. The agency also invited the media to see the entire spacecraft on July 13 at the Astrotech Space Operations in Titusville, Florida

NASA's Parker solar probe is not expected to be launched before August 4 from the Cape Canaveral Air Station in Florida.

The Heat Shield

The TPS is an 8-foot-diameter heat shield designed to protect the spaceship in its shadow or the shadow that it projects onto the spacecraft. When the Parker solar probe reaches its closest approach to the sun, temperatures can reach nearly 2500 degrees Fahrenheit. The heat shield will absorb most of the heat, letting in only 85 degrees Fahrenheit of heat into the spacecraft.

The GST is built like a sandwich. A carbon foam core, measuring 4.5 inches, is pressed between two panels of carbon-carbon composite materials overheated. The side facing the sun is sprayed with a specially formulated white coating to repel the solar energy from the TPS.

The heat shield weighs only 160 pounds. It should be designed as light as possible because when the Parker solar sensor reaches its closest approach to the sun, it moves as fast as 430,000 km / h. It will be like traveling from Philadelphia to Washington, DC, in about a second

The installation done on June 27 was in fact the second time that NASA was installing TPS on the spacecraft. The agency initially set up TPS in 2017 during tests at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab in Laurel, Maryland.

The current installation, on the other hand, is the complete final integration of TPS on the Parker solar probe. 19659005] Parker Solar Probe

Parker Solar Probe will be seven times closer to the sun's atmosphere, known as the crown. This is something that has not been done by any spacecraft in the past. It will provide the experts with the closest observations of a star.

The spacecraft will use the gravity of Venus to conduct seven overflights during its nearly seven-year mission. It will fly through the sun's atmosphere as close as 3.8 million miles, entering a good orbit within Mercury. The average distance from the Earth to the sun is 93 million miles.

In the end, the Parker Solar Probe will help experts know the origin and the evolution of the solar wind. It will provide information that will help experts predict changes in the Earth's space environment that impact life and technology on Earth.

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