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NASA to Make Announcement About First Mission to Touch Sun

S

ShadowSwordmaster

Banned
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-to-make-announcement-about-first-mission-to-touch-sun
ASA will make an announcement about the agency’s first mission to fly directly into our sun’s atmosphere during an event at 11 a.m. EDT Wednesday, May 31, from the University of Chicago’s William Eckhardt Research Center Auditorium. The event will air live on NASA Television and the agency’s website.

The mission, Solar Probe Plus, is scheduled to launch in the summer of 2018. Placed in orbit within four million miles of the sun’s surface, and facing heat and radiation unlike any spacecraft in history, the spacecraft will explore the sun’s outer atmosphere and make critical observations that will answer decades-old questions about the physics of how stars work. The resulting data will improve forecasts of major space weather events that impact life on Earth, as well as satellites and astronauts in space.
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S

Seesaw15

Member
giphy.gif
 
K

Kindekuma

Banned
There should be some baking instructions laser etched on the probe.

-Warm Sun to 5,778K.
-Place Probe directly on surface, no baking sheet between the Probe and Sun.
-Bake for 0 minutes until crispy.
-Enjoy!
 
Lister

Lister

Banned
Fercho said:
This is so awesome.

How many years will it take to get to the sun?
Click to expand...

A fair few I'd imagine. I don't think we have viable engine tech to cancel out a large enough amount of Earth's Orbital velocity of 30 km/s (I think you'd need to target around 21 km/s). So you'd have to do some maneuvering out to Jupiter and back to get to the sun.

EDIT: According to the mission report it's going to take about 6 years, going out to Jupiter, then using Venus to increase the eccentricity of the orbit around the sun until it gets to within 4 million miles.

It's supposed then become the fastest moving man-made object, traveling at 200 km/s. Wow!
 
Mikado

Mikado

Member
From http://solarprobe.jhuapl.edu/
To perform these unprecedented investigations, the spacecraft and instruments will be protected from the Sun’s heat by a 4.5-inch-thick (11.43 cm) carbon-composite shield, which will need to withstand temperatures outside the spacecraft that reach nearly 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit (1,377 degrees Celsius).
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For reference, the melting point of steel is around 1370-ish C.
 
D

dabig2

Member
Fercho said:
This is so awesome.

How many years will it take to get to the sun?
Click to expand...

Lister said:
A fair few I'd imagine. I don't think we have viable engine tech to cancel out a large enough amount of Earth's Orbital velocity of 30 km/s (I think you'd need to target around 21 km/s). So you'd have to do some maneuvering out to Jupiter and back to get to the sun.
Click to expand...

https://science.nasa.gov/missions/solar-probe
Orbit: Solar Probe Plus will be placed into an elliptical orbit around the sun. The size of the orbit will be decreased over nearly seven years using seven Venus flybys. Solar Probe Plus will orbit the sun 24 times, gradually “walking in” toward the sun with each pass. The closest points of each orbit come well within the path of Mercury— the closest planet to the sun. On the final three orbits, Solar Probe Plus will fly to within 3.7 million miles of the sun's surface. That is about seven times closer than the current record-holder, the Helios spacecraft.
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So technically, it'll be 7 years to reach the point they want. But during those 7 years we'll still be getting a lot of useful data I imagine.
 
G

Guy.brush

Member
"So hey, what should we call our first ever sun exploring probe?"
"Hmm Icarus?"
"Good one Jensen."
"Solaris?"
"On the short list, another one?"
"Hyperion"
"ah yes, greek, ok anything else?"
"how about SOLAR PROBE PLUS?"
"Yes, that's it! Brilliant!"
 
D

DiipuSurotu

Banned
Sephzilla said:
Their mission is to touch the sun, not fly close to it and then crash spectacularly
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It doesn't need a return trip to transmit the data (it's not like it's going to collect rocks on the surface or anything lol). I'm pretty sure the plan is to crash it spectacularly, after we have received all the data.
 
S

sphinx

the piano man
so the closest the probe will be from the sun is 4'000'000 miles?

is sound like it would still be too far from it but an anstronomical unit is 93'000'000 (distance between the sun and earth) so that's pretty damn near.

how can it withstand the heat?
 
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