What is Parker Solar Probe ?
Spacecraft is a vehicle designed to operate with or without a crew in a controlled flight pattern above Earth’s lower atmosphere.
The Parker Solar Probe is a NASA space probe launched in 2018 with the mission of making observations of the outer corona of the Sun. The Parker Solar Probe approach within 9.86 solar radii (6.9 million km or 4.3 million miles) from the center of the Sun, and by 2025 will travel, at closest approach, as fast as 690,000 km/h (430,000 mph), or 0.064% the speed of light.
Images Credits : en.wikipedia.org
This spacecraft need to survive this barrage of dust and intense radiation for at least seven years while making scientific measurements autonomously.
The technologies required to accomplish that feat simply did not exist until the late 1990s, when high-temperature carbon-composite foams became available.
It is possible to fabricate a heat shield that was lightweight and sufficiently stiff, one that could provide the needed shade for the rest of the spacecraft.
Credits : Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
This spacecraft performs its scientific investigations in a hazardous region of intense heat and solar radiation. The spacecraft will fly close enough to the Sun to watch the solar wind speed up from subsonic to supersonic, and it will fly through the birthplace of the highest-energy solar particles.
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To perform these unprecedented investigations, the spacecraft and instruments are protected from the Sun's heat by a 4.5-inch-thick ( 11.43 cm ) carbon-composite shield, which needs to withstand temperatures outside the spacecraft that reach nearly 2,500 F ( 1,377 C )
Images Credits : dailymail.co.uk
NASA's Parker Solar Probe inside one half of its 62.7 foot tall fairing
Credit : NASA / Johns Hopkins APL / Ed Whitman
Parker uses a highly ellipticalorbit with Venus Gravity assists to get closer to the sun
Credits : NASA / JPL / WISPR Team
An illustration of Parker Solar Probe approaching the Sun
Credits : NASA / Johns Hopkins APL / Steve Gribben