Parker Solar Probe: set the controls for the edge of the sun … | Science

S One hour during the first hours of August 4th, the Florida night will be temporarily banned. One of the most powerful rockets in the world, a Delta IV Heavy, will ignite. His fiery breath with bathing Cape Canaveral in the light and thunder.

Mounting the rocket will be Parker Solar Probe (PSP), on one of the most daring space missions ever designed. PSP will fly closer to the sun than any previous mission. It will plunge into the sun's atmosphere, where it will have to tolerate temperatures around 1400C (seven times hotter than a kitchen oven).

The launch will be a moment of emotion for all those who worked on the mission. This is especially true for his scientist Nicky Fox. This is a Briton who is now working at the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University, Maryland, where she has led the development of the PSP over the past eight years.

"You put so much of your effort, your life, your awakening of hours to make this mission a success," she says. "I am totally committed. I am so excited to be in the same room with the spaceship. It's like meeting Brad Pitt for me or something. "

Indeed, once our conversation is over, she goes to the clean room to say goodbye for the last time. After that, PSP will be sealed in the nose cone of the rocket. She will never see him again.

A mission to fly in the sun's atmosphere, known as the crown, has been on astronomers' wish lists for several decades. It was even included in the initial list of possible missions that NASA should pursue when the agency was established in 1958, following the launch of Sputnik by the Soviet Union.

The reason for interest is that the sun presents one to us. the most mysterious scientific mysteries of all time. The sun's surface is about 6,000C, but the crown is a huge 3m degrees. Since the crown takes its heat from the surface, it should not be hotter than the surface. It's like putting a pan of milk on the hob as low as possible and boiling milk instantly.

Astronomers have developed a number of hypotheses to explain why the crown is so hot. In one theory, the gas moving on the surface of the sun creates thunderous sounds, like waves crashing on a shore. If this sound can be transmitted to the crown, it could provide the energy needed to heat it. Other theories suggest a variety of ways in which magnetic fields generated in the sun could connect to the crown and provide energy.

"It's the kind of thing that you would think you know now, but you do not do it," says Tim Horbury of Imperial College London, also a member of the PSP Scientific Team Beyond Intellectual Curiosity, there is a practical reason to want to know too

The crown is not entirely tied to the sun.There is a region – about 10 solar rays above the surface – where heating becomes so intense that the gas comes out of the sun and flows into space.This "solar wind" is composed of subatomic particles that were once in the sun.When it hits the Earth, it shines our atmosphere. , causing the dawn – the northern and southern lights that will delight tourists when visiting the polar regions.

In addition to the aurora borealis, incoming solar particles can disrupt satellite communications. Large bursts of the solar wind, known as space time, can even cause electrical malfunctions in satellites and power plants on Earth. As we rely more and more on electronic technology in our daily lives, it becomes essential to understand the danger posed by the solar wind.

This means going down a spacecraft in the crown where the solar wind is formed. And that's where PSP intervenes. "We've been waiting for 60 years for the technology to mature so we can accomplish such a risky mission – it's really going somewhere we've never been before," says Fox.

After its launch in August, the ship The spacecraft will fly to Venus in September, then head for the sun, and its first close pbad, known as perihelion, will take place on November 1, when it will rise to about 30 solar rays from the sun's surface. While this satellite is already twice as close as the previous one, the Helios-B spacecraft, it's nothing compared to what the team hopes to achieve.

Initially PSP will maintain a highly elliptical orbit around the sun that takes about five months to complete. But the plan is to bring it ever closer to the sun. Finally, it will be only 6m kilometers above the infernal solar surface; this will take it to the point where the crown becomes the solar wind. In addition, it will travel at a speed of about 200 km / s, making it the fastest human object of all time. At this point, its orbital period will be three months. With heat and speed, it will be the most extreme environment in which a spaceship has ever intended to work.

"There are a lot of risks here, obviously the people who built the spaceship are extremely competent, but as good as you are, there is always the risk of doing something new. will be in our mouth for a while until we see that everything will be fine, "says Horbury.

Fox is in agreement. For her, everything revolves around this first overview. "I think the first one will be the most biting, I think that once we get through first, people will relax," she says.

And then the mission will install at its own pace, determined by its orbital period of five months.PSP does not have cameras that will watch the sun.Now, its instruments are mainly designed to sample the particles and magnetic fields that The data will then be uploaded to Earth and the scientific teams will badyze and determine the next scientific objectives of the probe before diving back into the sun.

And he will have help in this Promethean mission.

Solar Orbiter is a mission of the European Space Agency being built in the clean rooms of Airbus, Stevenage. Designed to be launched after 2019, Solar Orbiter is to observe this who do not get on the sun and see how it affects the solar wind. To do this, the spacecraft has telescopes that look at the sun, and sensors to detect particles flying in front of it.

It is farther from the sun than the PSP, suspended at 60 solar rays. But even here the temperature is not a picnic. The Solar Orbiter heat shield must handle a continuous 600C. There is no escape in deep space for a month or two to cool down.

Like the PSP, she is behind a heat shield. This special hi-tech umbrella will keep the spaceship alive and able to work. "It's as if the insulation of your roof was only a lot more exotic," says Ian Walters, project manager at Solar Orbiter at Airbus

and that's all it takes who makes the success and destruction of the mission. If the spacecraft loses control or accidentally moves the heat shield away from the sun, unshielded areas will melt quickly if control is not restored immediately.

"You literally have dozens of seconds," says Walters. 19659030] the artists performing the solar orbiter esa "src =" https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/44e023268ea9dda70cef19ad5b7c59ff62900902/16_0_6578_3947/master/6578.jpg?w=300&q=55&auto=format&usm= 12 & did = & s = max d66e03fe661eb83f8f22d0eba3f36b55 "/>