Nasa begins testing probe that will ‘touch the sun’

Nasa has begun testing its new probe that will ‘touch the sun’, when it launches into space this summer. 

Dubbed the Parker Solar Probe (PSP), the 430,000mph (692,000km/h) craft will collect vital information about the life of stars and their weather events.

This will help scientists improve how we predict dangerous solar flares, which can disrupt satellites and power supplies here on Earth.

Experts from Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland lowered the PSP into a 40 foot (12 metre) tall thermal vacuum chamber.

The chamber simulates the harsh conditions that the spacecraft will experience on its journey through space, including near-vacuum conditions and severe hot and cold temperatures.

The spacecraft will remain in the chamber for about seven weeks, coming out in mid-March for final tests and packing before heading to Florida, where it’s scheduled to launch in July 2018 aboard a Delta IV Heavy launch vehicle.

In a written statement, a spokesman for the space agency said: ‘Nasa’s historic Parker Solar Probe mission will revolutionize our understanding of the Sun, where changing conditions can propagate out into the solar system, affecting Earth and other worlds. 

‘Parker Solar Probe will travel through the sun’s atmosphere, closer to the surface than any spacecraft before it, facing brutal heat and radiation conditions and ultimately providing humanity with the closest-ever observations of a star.’

Nasa gave a sneak peak of its new probe that will ‘tough the sun’ in September 2017, including newly installed thermal shielding that can withstand temperatures of 1,371°C (2,500 F).

The PSP is due for launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station,Florida and will fly directly into the atmosphere of the sun in a world first.

The device has now been shown in flight configuration for the first time at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, where it is being built. 

After launch, it will reach an orbit within four million miles (6.5 million km) of the sun and will measure activity at its outer surface, known as the ‘corona’.

Nasa gave a sneak peak of its 2018 probe (left) that will ‘touch the sun’. The showcase includes the Parker Solar Probe’s newly fixed thermal shield (right image shows installation) that can withstand temperatures of 2,500 °F (1,371°C)

The craft will collect vital information about the life of stars and their weather events, and will help scientists improve how we predict dangerous solar flares. 

The revolutionary heat shield that will protect the spacecraft was installed for the first time on September 21, 2017. 

It measures 8 ft (2.43 m) in diameter and is made of a 4.5 inch-thick (11.43 cm) carbon-composite.

Nasa officially announced PSP during a live stream event in May at the University of Chicago’s William Eckhardt Research Centre Auditorium. 

‘We wanted to take the challenge of going to the worst thermal environment in the solar system – and surviving it,’ said Dr Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of Nasa’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

‘We want to measure the environment there and find what the heating processes are that make the corona hot, and what processes accelerate the solar wind.’

Dr Zurbuchen then announced, live on air, that the probe – originally dubbed the Solar Probe Plus – was to be renamed the Parker Solar Probe after University of Chicago scientist Eugene Parker, who pioneered solar wind science.

The revolutionary heat shield (top left) that will protect the spacecraft was installed for the first time on Sept 21. This is the only time the spacecraft will have its thermal protection system – which will reach temperatures of 2,500 °F (1,371°C) while at the sun – attached until launch

The spacecraft, dubbed the Parker Solar Probe, will see a spacecraft launched from Earth in July 2018, to reach an orbit within four million miles (6.5 million km) of the sun’s surface. This will be seven times closer than any spacecraft that has ventured before it

The craft will collect vital information about the life of stars and their weather events, and will help scientists predict solar flares

Dr Parker, who was also speaking at the event, responded: ‘I am extremely honoured to be associated with this heroic space mission.’

Dr Nicola Fox, mission project scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, then took to the stage.

She said that until now, Nasa didn’t have the advanced materials needed to make such a close trip to the sun’s corona.

She added that the corona is actually hotter than the sun’s centre, and that finding out why is a key part of the probe mission.

‘I like to think of this as the coolest, hottest mission,’ she said.

She explained that Parker Solar Probe will gradually ‘surf’ closer and closer to the sun, into its corona. 

The PSP will need to withstand temperatures outside the spacecraft of 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit (1,377 degrees Celsius)

The craft will to withstand higher temperatures than any probe that has come before it.

‘We will finally touch the sun,’ she said.

Answering questions from the audience, Dr Fox described some of the state-of-the-art equipment that the Parker Solar Probe will carry.

The craft’s kit includes a white light imager called Whisper, which will take images of solar waves as the craft propels through them at high speeds.

To measure the ‘bulk plasma’ of solar winds – which Dr Fox described as the ‘break and butter’ of the flares – a set of magnetic imaging equipment will also be stored on board. 

The spacecraft will swoop within 4 million miles (6.5 million km) of the sun’s surface – bringing it seven times closer to the sun’s surface than any spacecraft before it.

The craft will face extremes in heat and radiation and will reach speeds of up to 450,000 miles per hour (725,000 kph) at its closest flyby of the star.

This image shows the planned route and flybys of the PSP craft on its six-year mission

It is hoped that PSP can help scientists to better understand solar flares – brief eruptions of intense high-energy radiation from the sun’s surface that can knock out communications on Earth.

According to Nasa, observations from this new vantage point will help to uncover the physics of how stars work, and could improve our ability to predict space weather.

These events have impacts on Earth as well as the satellites and astronauts in space. 

Scientists have long wanted to send a probe through the sun’s corona to better understand the solar wind and the material it carries into our solar system.

‘This is going to be our first mission to fly to the sun,’ Eric Christian, a Nasa research scientist at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said of the mission in 2017.

‘We can’t get to the very surface of the sun,’ but the mission will get close enough to answer three important questions, he said.

Until scientists can explain what is going on up close to the sun, they will not be able to accurately predict space weather effects that cause havoc at Earth.

The latest mission could help predict a ‘huge solar event’, Nasa says.

HOW SOLAR FLARES IMPACT EARTH 

Solar flares can damage satellites and have an enormous financial cost. 

Astronauts are not in immediate danger because of the relatively low orbit of this manned mission. 

They do have to be concerned about cumulative exposure during space walks. The charged particles can also threaten airlines by disturbing the Earth’s magnetic field.

Very large flares can even create currents within electricity grids and knock out energy supplies. 

A positive aspect, from an aesthetic point of view, is that the auroras are enhanced. 

Geomagnetic storms are more disruptive now than in the past because of our greater dependence on technical systems that can be affected by electric currents.

Artist’s impression of a solar flare erupting from the sun’s surface. The flares are dense bursts of energy that can disrupt communications on Earth

The sun is the source of the solar wind; a flow of gases that streams past Earth at speeds of more than a million miles per hour (1.6 million km per hour).

Disturbances in the solar wind shake Earth’s magnetic field and pump energy into the radiation belts. 

One recent study by the National Academy of Sciences estimated that without advance warning a huge solar event could cause two trillion dollars in damage in the US alone.

It could leave the eastern seaboard of the US could be without power for a year. 

The PSP will be protected by the sun’s heat by a 4.5 inch-thick (11.43 cm) carbon-composite shield

Millions of tons of highly magnetised material can erupt from the sun at speeds of several million miles an hour.

‘This mission will provide insight on a critical link in the sun-Earth connection. Data will be key to understanding and, perhaps, forecasting space weather,’ said Nasa.

‘Until we can explain what is going on up close to the sun, we will not be able to accurately predict space weather effects that can cause havoc at Earth.’ 

‘At its closest point, the PSP will be travelling at 450,000 miles per hour.’

HOW SOLAR WIND IS FORMED 

The sun and its atmosphere are made of plasma – a mix of positively and negatively charged particles which have separated at extremely high temperatures, that both carries and travels along magnetic field lines.

Material from the corona streams out into space, filling the solar system with the solar wind. 

But scientists found that as the plasma travels further away from the sun, things change. 

Views of the solar wind from NASA’s STEREO spacecraft (left) and after computer processing (right). Scientists used an algorithm to dim the appearance of bright stars and dust in images of the faint solar wind

The sun begins to lose magnetic control, forming the boundary that defines the outer corona – the very edge of the sun. 

The breakup of the rays is similar to the way water shoots out from a squirt gun.

First, the water is a smooth and unified stream, but it eventually breaks up into droplets, then smaller drops and eventually a fine, misty spray. 

A recent Nasa study captured the plasma at the same stage where a stream of water gradually disintegrates into droplets.

If charged particles from solar winds hit Earth’s magnectic field, this can cause problems for satellite and communication equipment.