NASA's Parker solar probe shatters records for the sake of touching the sun

T Forgetting the sun is like a crazy dream. But in a technical feat that responds to the 60-year-old recommendation to launch a probe into our local star, NASA's Parker Parker solar probe shows dreams come true.

Built by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, the probe is launched in August, two records were recorded on Monday: first, setting the shortest distance a spacecraft ever traveled from the sun and second, reaching a speed superior to that of any other spacecraft in history.

The Parker solar probe measured just 26.55 million miles (42.7 million kilometers) by the time it reached the closest orbit to the sun – called perihelion – at 22:28 . Monday evening, Eastern Time, traveling at an unprecedented speed of 213,200 miles at the time while gathering scientific data.

But this record is only the first in a long series of polls that are going to break, as Johns Hopkins APL project manager Andrew Driesman says in a video with the news .

"Closer to the Sun than Any Other Spacecraft"

"We are going to approach the sun like no other spaceship was before. We will not do it once, we will not do it twice. We will do it 24 times, and it's terrifying. millions of kilometers from the surface of the sun, which is already comparable to the previous record set by Helios 2 in 1976 to just under 27 million kilometers. Over the next seven years, the probe will use the gravity of Venus to move closer and closer. It is planned to dive 3.8 million km from the surface by the end of the mission in 2025.

But in infernal temperatures and violent radiation, scientists study with interest the magnetic fields, the plasma and the energetic particles of the sun. The proximity of the sun places the Parker solar probe in the solar corona, the atmosphere around the sun reaching 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit (or 1,377 degrees Celsius), exceeding the temperature of the surface itself.

It's getting hot here

To defeat heat, the probe will protect its sun-exposed side with a thermal shield called a thermal protection system . Its not very creative name conceals the heaviness of this component of the probe. The 160-pound shield, a 4.5-inch thick foam core located between a superheated carbon composite, has a heat capacity so high that it can withstand 820 degrees Fahrenheit while holding the instruments stored behind him at room temperature safely.

Even with the thermal protection system, heat forces researchers to keep communication simple. On four different tones, one confirms that everything is fine, while the other three indicate different types of problems. However, during the days around the perihelion, radio emissions from the sun will interrupt communications until the spacecraft can respond with a beep.

"We will almost no longer be in contact with the spaceship after a meeting. Sanae Kubota, Responsible for Failure Management

Using data – the transmission of which takes about 30 minutes between the probe and the Earth – scientists are trying to better understand the spatial weather like solar winds. Although the sun is 92.96 million kilometers, space weather affects instruments and people on Earth by returning satellites, including GPS systems.

For the fastest spacecraft ever built, the scientific data that the probe collects can not be transmitted quickly. enough. Due to the orientation of the spacecraft towards the sun, scientists have to wait several weeks before the data can be sent back to Earth.