Solar Explorer “Parker”, created by NASA, became the champion at the very beginning of his mission, when he took the title of fastest spacecraft in history, subtracting it from the hugely successful probe “New horizons”. And a few weeks back has made history by flying through the solar corona and passing the data back. Recently, NASA announced that Parker has completed a full orbit around the Sun and sets in the second round.
Probe Parker explores the Sun
Parker is in full working condition January 1, with all systems operating normally. And started to transfer a bunch of data through the Deep Space network — NASA says that at the moment, collected more than 17 gigabytes. Parker has collected so much data that it will take another few months to get them back. Transfer of data from the first orbit should be completed exactly to the point, when Parker will again go into the solar corona.
In preparation for the upcoming solar passage, NASA actively clears space on the internal SSD of the probe. When data is transmitted to the Ground, “Parker” deleted the appropriate files. The spacecraft also receives new navigation information, which NASA reports once a month.
NASA says it expects Parker will reach perihelion (approach to the Sun is closest) 4 APR. This is the second of 24 scheduled orbit that promise to improve our understanding of the Sun. The mission of “Parker” was developed many years. NASA wanted to study the solar corona, but until recently, technology of protection of the probe was outside of our capabilities. You might think that the surface of the Sun will be hotter than the space around it, but it’s not. Corona of ionized plasma surrounding the Sun has a temperature around a million degrees Kelvin, about 300 times hotter than the surface.
Parker features a 4.5-inch composite carbon foam heat shield, sandwiched between two sheets of carbon fiber. NASA was not sure how well it will work as long as Parker was not inside the crown, but now the Agency believes that “Parker” is not difficult to pass all 24 of the orbit, not turned into a ball of molten metal.
The perihelion of the orbit for April will amount to 24.1 million kilometers. With each orbit the device will approach closer and closer until it reaches 6 million kilometers from the surface.
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