NASA's mission to "touch the sun" should be launched in early August

NASA is preparing to launch a historic probe for "touching the sun" – what scientists hope will crack the mysteries of several decades about our star – in early August.

The mission, called Parker Solar Probe, will loop around the sun 24 times, flying in the atmosphere of the star to a million degrees, called the crown.

The intimidating flight plan of the spacecraft is not just a daring lark; This is a necessity to answer questions about the sun that have stuck scientists for decades. In some cases, their responses will affect our lives on Earth. But scientists also benefit from easy access to the sun to understand all the stars by proxy.

"We have to go to the crown because we did a lot of science looking at the star," Nicola Fox, a project scientist. Solar scientist at Johns Hopkins University said on July 20 at a NASA press conference on the upcoming mission. "We looked at it in every possible way, of all wavelengths, we even exceeded the orbit of Mercury, but we have to get into that region of action and into the region where all these mysteries are really occurring. "[New Look Inside Sun’s Atmosphere Yields Clues About Mysterious Solar Wind]

Solving Three Mysteries

First, the mission will help scientists understand the crown itself – in particular, how heat travels through the atmosphere of the sun. At present, this heat flow seems counter-intuitive: the crown can reach temperatures about 300 times higher than the sun's surface, even if it is farther away from the reactions that feed the star [19659002] "It's a very strange environment for us. "Alex Young, a solar scientist at NASA, said at the press conference." We are used to the idea that if I am next to a campfire and that I am in danger, I will not be able to do it. it removes it, it cools – but it's not what happens in the sun. "

The second task of the probe is to study what scientists call the solar wind – a stream of highly charged particles that flows from the sun and crosses the entire solar system, forming the bubble that marks our vicinity of space.

But scientists are still working to try to understand exactly how it works, and again, it something very bizarre happens – the solar wind somehow accelerates to the supersonic. "The solar wind is going from a kind of constant breeze to a real supersonic flow of the crown going to millions of miles at the time, "said Young.Scientists hope that the measures of the probe, both in the solar wind and along its current, will help them solve this mystery.

Finally, the probe will study an even more dramatic consequence of living near our star. plasma nodes in the space. "The sun can blow up these huge stains of materials – billions of tons of solar atmosphere strung together with a solar magnetic field that escape from the sun at millions of kilometers at the hour," he said. declared Young

. if weather conditions are quite spectacular, explosions can be dangerous for astronauts and satellites on their trajectory – and the most powerful ones could destroy the power grids here on Earth. Scientists have some techniques for predicting the space-time equivalent of tornadoes and hurricanes, but they hope the mission will make these predictions more accurate.

And if you're just there for pretty pictures, do not worry; NASA has also organized some of them. The probe contains a camera that will show project scientists the view of the flying craft through the crown. This will mean images not of the sun's surface but of the crown itself, with images more closely resembling those produced on Earth during a total solar eclipse. [Watch the Sun’s Elusive Corona Appear in Time-Lapse Solar Eclipse Video]

Delayed for Technology

Scientists have struggled with these issues for decades, but without the resources needed to actually reach the stars. For that, they had to wait for the technology to turn the Parker solar probe into reality.

The most important part of this technology is the heat shield, which most spacecraft instruments use to protect themselves from the dizzying heat of the system. Sun. It is a slab of carefully crafted carbonaceous materials, looking strange, but doing its job: when temperatures on the front of the shield reach 2500 degrees Fahrenheit (1370 degrees Celsius) Its back is only 600 degrees F (315 degrees Celsius) The instruments themselves will be powered by solar panels, but these panels had to be adapted to handle the too powerful input available so close to the sun. "Solar cells have to stay cool, they do not like to overheat, and if they do, they do not work," Fox said. This meant designing self-cooling panels that the spacecraft could adjust alone, by folding most panels behind the heat shield when needed.

A third important advance was to ensure that the probe could take care of itself. The probe will be on the other side of the sun during its closest approaches, with no way to call home if something goes wrong – and even when it can come out a signal, it will face a communication delay of 16 minutes.

"I like to think of her [Parker] as an independent spaceship," Fox said. "She is very, very autonomous, she has to look after herself when she is in this coronal area, there is no one in the loop." This means that the spacecraft can automatically determine when it needs to move its position in space due to the amount of sunlight that different parts of the spacecraft receive. [Touching the Sun: NASA Mission Renamed ‘Parker Solar Probe’]

Looking Ahead

The Parker Solar Probe is at the NASA Kennedy Space Center, packed and ready for launch, despite small issues delaying the launch of a week, including the addition of A second set of temperature sensors the original set would be defective.

Now the spaceship is ready to go. "We did all the work, all the checks, she finally looked exactly as if I expected her to look at all those PowerPoint presentations I've seen there." is 10 years old, "Fox said. "She is buttoned up, beautiful and totally ready to take off."

The spacecraft is now scheduled for a launch window that opens Aug. 6 at 4:08 EDT (0808 GMT) and ends Aug. 2. 19. He will leave the Earth aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta IV rocket in two stages, and a third stage of acceleration will be triggered in the space.

All this power is needed to steer the spacecraft's path toward the sun. "We have to go so fast because we have to lose the influence of the Earth," Fox said. "We do not want to travel with the Earth, we want to be able to go to the sun."

Once the spacecraft has escaped Earth, it will fly to Venus, looping the planet about six weeks after launch. to slow down and return to the sun. Then it's on the sun. The probe will perform 24 orbits around the sun, interspersed with six other adjustments that use the influence of Venus to bring the probe closer to the star.

The orbits have the shape of petals of flowers, the probe gathering most of its data. The day gushes out as it is less than a quarter of the distance from the Earth, and then sends this information home during the far portion of its loop. At its closest approach, the sensor will fly just 3.83 million miles (6 million kilometers) above the sun's surface at a speed of 700,000 km / h, making it the only way to reach the target. the fastest human object.

about seven years after launch, the machine will exhaust the fuel that it uses to adjust its body and keep sensitive instruments out of the heat of the sun. And that will be the beginning of the end of the Parker Solar Probe.

"At this point, the parts of the body that are not designed to see the complete solar environment will see it then, the spaceship will start to break in large pieces, then it will gradually and progressively smaller" Fox said. "I love to think romantically that she will become a part of the crown and orbit the sun forever."

Send an email to Meghan Bartels at [email protected] or follow her @meghanbartels . Follow us on @Spacedotcom Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com