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The launch of Parker Solar Probe, the sun's closest mission to all man-made objects, is fast approaching, and on June 27, 2018, Parker Solar Probe's thermal protection is over. calls for thermal protection. System, or TPS-was installed on the spacecraft.
A 60-year mission in manufacturing, Parker Solar Probe will make a historic journey to the sun's crown, a region of the solar atmosphere. With the help of its revolutionary thermal shield, now permanently attached to the spacecraft in anticipation of its launch in August 2018, the spacecraft's orbit will take it to 4 million miles from the extremely hot surface of the Sun, where he will collect unprecedented data.
The eight-foot-diameter heat shield will protect everything in its shadow, the shadow that it projects onto the spacecraft. At the solar probe 's closest approach to the Solar Probe, temperatures on the heat shield will reach nearly 2500 degrees Fahrenheit, but the spacecraft and its instruments will be kept at a relatively comfortable temperature. about 85 degrees Fahrenheit
of two panels of carbon-carbon composite overheated sandwiching a lightweight carbon foam core of 4.5 inches in thickness. The side of the sun-facing heat shield is also covered with a specially formulated white liner to reflect as much of the solar energy from the spacecraft as possible.
The heat shield itself weighs only about 160 pounds – here on Earth, the foam core is 97% air. Because the Parker Solar Probe moves so fast – 430,000 miles per hour to its closest approach to the Sun, fast enough to travel from Philadelphia to Washington, in about a second – the shield and spacecraft must be light weight to reach the necessary orbit.
The Relocation of the Thermal Protection System – which was briefly attached to the spacecraft during tests at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab in Laurel, Maryland, in the fall of 2017 – marks the first time since months that Parker Solar Probe is fully integrated. The heat shield and spacecraft were tested and evaluated separately at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, before being shipped to Astrotech Space Operations in Titusville, Florida, in April 2018. With recent reunification , Parker Solar Probe
Parker Solar Probe is part of NASA's Living with a Star program, or LWS, to explore aspects of the Sun-Earth system that directly affect life and society. LWS is managed by Goddard for the Heliophysics Division of the NASA Science Missions Directorate in Washington, DC. The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory runs the Parker Solar Probe Mission for NASA. APL has designed and built the spacecraft and will also use it.
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Parker Solar Probe gets its revolutionary heat shield
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