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STATEN ISLAND, NY – A state-of-the-art thermal shield has just been installed on NASA's Parker solar probe, a spacecraft that will travel closer to the sun than any object manufactured by the company. 39; man.
– called the Thermal Protection System (TPS) – was installed on June 27, as the spacecraft prepares for a launch in August.
The probe will make a historic journey to the sun's crown, a region of the solar atmosphere. The objectives of the mission are to track how energy and heat move through the solar corona and to explore what accelerates the solar wind and solar energy particles
"With the l & # 39; using its revolutionary thermal shield now permanently attached to the spacecraft.In anticipation of its launch in August 2018, the orbit of the spacecraft will transport it to within 4 million miles of the extremely hot surface of the Sun, where it will collect unprecedented data on the inner workings of the corona, "NASA said in a press release.When the probe reaches its closest approach to the sun, temperatures on the heat shield reach nearly 2500 degrees Fahrenheit , but the spacecraft and its instruments will be maintained at a temperature of about 85 degrees Fahrenheit.
The shield is made of two Composite Panels Carbon-carbon super heated, sandwiching a core of carbon foam 4.5 inches thick.
The side of the sun-facing screen is also sprayed with a co The Parker Solar Probe is part of NASA's Living with a Star program to explore aspects of the Sun-Earth system that directly affect the life and society.
John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory manages the mission. The laboratory designed and built the spacecraft and will use it
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