Parker Solar Probe Will Fly Directly Into The Sun's Atmosphere

NASA is planning an August launch its Parker Solar Probe mission it says will "revolutionize our understanding of the Sun." The launch window will open at about 4 a.m. EDT, with an approximate one-hour duration, no earlier than Saturday, Aug. 4. The spacecraft will launch on a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket from Space Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) in Florida.

The Parker Solar Probe, about the size of a small car, will provide unprecedented information about our Sun, where changing conditions can spread out into the solar system to affect Earth and other worlds. The spacecraft will fly directly into the Sun's atmosphere where, from a safe distance of approximately 4 million miles from its surface, the spacecraft will trace how energy and heat move through the Sun’s atmosphere and explore what accelerates the solar wind and solar energetic particles.

The Parker Solar Probe is part of NASA’s Living with a Star Program, managed by the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, designed, built and manages the mission for NASA.

United Launch Alliance of Centennial, Colorado, is the provider of the Delta IV launch service for Parker Solar Probe. Northrop Grumman is providing the rocket’s fully-integrated third stage. NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy, is responsible for launch service acquisition, integration, analysis and launch management.

(Image provided with NASA media release)

FMI: www.nasa.gov