NASA has confirmed that its Parker Solar Probe is safe and fully operational after its Christmas Eve close encounter with the Sun. On December 24, 2024, the robotic probe came within a record 3.8 million miles (6.1 million km) of the Sun’s surface.
Since it was launched in 2018, the Parker Solar Probe has been using a series of flybys of Venus to carry out slingshot maneuvers that have shifted its trajectory closer and closer to the Sun. With its final encounter with Venus in November 2024, it is now in an orbit that not only has brought it closer to the Sun than any human-made object, but also made it the fastest ever built as it reached a speed of 430,000 mph (692,000 km/h).
In a quest to learn more about the nature of the Sun and how it works, the Parker Solar Probe, in one sense, actually entered the Sun itself – or, at least, its atmosphere. That is, to say the least, a very nasty place to be. The temperature there reaches over one million °F (555,000 °C). If the area wasn’t essentially a hard vacuum, the spacecraft would be a melted, crispy ball of debris by now, but thanks to a foam carbon shield that can withstand 2,600 °F (1,400 °C) or hot enough to melt steel, it survived. In the shade of this shield, the probe and its instruments remain at room temperature.
Parker Solar Probe
Not surprisingly, there was a lot of nail biting at Mission Control at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland as Parker plunged into the solar corona. Things not only got hot, the blazing solar plasma drowned out communications with Earth. Then, on the evening of December 26, a beacon signal was received showing that the craft was still functional and transmitting.
On January 1, 2024, Parker moved far enough away from the Sun to send back clear telemetry, and will soon be sending back a full report of its dramatic encounter.
The transmission allowed NASA engineers to confirm that the spacecraft systems are online and in a proper condition to continue the mission, which includes four more close encounters this year. After that the probe will continue to function until the propellant for its attitude thrusters runs out. When that happens, the craft will be ordered to turn to expose itself to the Sun, causing it to self-destruct.
“Parker Solar Probe is braving one of the most extreme environments in space and exceeding all expectations,” said Nour Rawafi, the project scientist for Parker Solar Probe at APL. “This mission is ushering a new golden era of space exploration, bringing us closer than ever to unlocking the Sun’s deepest and most enduring mysteries.”
Source: NASA
