Solar Probe Plus (Parker Solar Probe) – Delta IV H/Star-48BV – Canaveral SLC-37B – 12.08.2018 в 07:31 UTC

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Tory Bruno‏Подлинная учетная запись @torybruno 21 мин. назад

By popular request...

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Chris B - NSF‏ @NASASpaceflight 9 мин. назад

ULA: Everything is progressing well toward the Delta IV Heavy Parker Solar Probe mission from SLC-37 at the Cape. Forecast shows an 80 percent chance of favorable weather conditions for launch.

Mission Booklet for one of the biggest missions of the year: https://www.ulalaunch.com/docs/default-source/launch-booklets/divh_parkersolarprobe_mob.pdf ...

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NASA_LSP‏Подлинная учетная запись @NASA_LSP 16 ч. назад

Parker Solar Probe, secured inside its payload fairing, was recently moved to Space Launch Complex 37 @45thSpaceWing. Soon after, the spacecraft was lifted and attached to the @ULALunch Delta IV Heavy in the Vertical Integration Facility. More: https://go.nasa.gov/2KvztG9 

Спойлер

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NASA_LSP‏Подлинная учетная запись @NASA_LSP 37 мин. назад

We are three days away from the launch of @NASASun's Parker #solarprobe aboard a @ulalaunch Delta IV Heavy . Check out @NASA's briefings & events schedule for the days leading up to launch, which is targeted for 3:33 a.m. ET from Space Launch Complex 37: https://go.nasa.gov/2ATBV9X 


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https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-to-host-briefings-events-for-aug-11-launch-to-touch-sun

Aug. 7, 2018
MEDIA ADVISORY M18-118

NASA to Host Briefings, Events for Aug. 11 Launch to Touch Sun

As NASA nears the launch of its Parker Solar Probe, the agency will host a series of media briefings beginning Wednesday, Aug. 8. These briefings, as well as special programs, the launch on Saturday, Aug. 11, and a postlaunch news conference all will air on NASA Television and the agency's website.

Parker Solar Probe will lift off on a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket fr om Space Launch Complex 37 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The first launch opportunity is at 3:33 a.m. EDT, at the opening of a 65-minute window.

Although the deadline has passed for media to attend the launch of this historic mission to our Sun, journalists may participate in prelaunch and postlaunch news briefings via phone by contacting Kennedy's News Center at 321-867-2468 for dial-in information.

The following is a complete schedule of mission coverage, including opportunities for media participation. All time are EDT:

Thursday, Aug. 9

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• 1 p.m. – Prelaunch mission news briefing
  

Friday, Aug. 10

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• 6 p.m. – NASA Edge prelaunch broadcast
• 7:30 p.m. – What Parker Solar Probe Will Provide to Humanity
  

Saturday, Aug. 11

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• 3 a.m. – Launch coverage begins
• 3:33 a.m. – Launch
• TBD – Postlaunch news conference
  

Parker Solar Probe will revolutionize our understanding of the Sun. The spacecraft will fly closer to the Sun's surface than any spacecraft before it, facing brutal heat and radiation. It will be the first spacecraft to fly directly through the Sun's corona – the part of the solar atmosphere visible during an eclipse – to answer questions about solar physics that have puzzled scientists for decades.

Gathering information about fundamental processes near the Sun can help improve our understanding of how our solar system's star changes the space environment, wh ere space weather can affect astronauts, interfere with satellite orbits, or damage spacecraft electronics.

Last Updated: Aug. 7, 2018
Editor: Karen Northon

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Прогноз погоды L-3 (на 2018-08-11)

Delta IV PSP L-3 Launch Forecast

↓ 70% GO

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It's Surprisingly Hard to Go to the Sun

NASA Goddard

Опубликовано: 8 авг. 2018 г.

The Sun contains 99.8 of the mass in our solar system. Its gravitational pull is what keeps everything here, from tiny Mercury to the gas giants to the Oort Cloud, 186 billion miles away. But even though the Sun has such a powerful pull, it's surprisingly hard to actually go to the Sun: It takes 55 times more energy to go to the Sun than it does to go to Mars.

Why is it so difficult? The answer lies in the same fact that keeps Earth from plunging into the Sun: Our planet is traveling very fast - about 67,000 miles per hour - almost entirely sideways relative to the Sun. The only way to get to the Sun is to cancel that sideways motion.

Since Parker Solar Probe will skim through the Sun's atmosphere, it only needs to drop 53,000 miles per hour of sideways motion to reach its destination, but that's no easy feat. In addition to using a powerful rocket, the Delta IV Heavy, Parker Solar Probe will perform seven Venus gravity assists over its seven-year mission to shed sideways speed into Venus' well of orbital energy. These gravity assists will draw Parker Solar Probe's orbit closer to the Sun for a record approach of just 3.83 million miles from the Sun's visible surface on the final orbits.

Though it's shedding sideways speed to get closer to the Sun, Parker Solar Probe will pick up overall speed, bolstered by Sun's extreme gravity - so it will also break the record for the fastest-ever human-made objects, clocking in at 430,000 miles per hour on its final orbits.

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Напоминание

NASA Sun & Space‏Подлинная учетная запись @NASASun 20 мин. назад

TOMORROW: Join us live at 1 p.m. EDT on Aug. 9 for a pre-launch briefing about Parker #SolarProbe! You'll hear from scientists, mission experts & launch team members. We'll also answer #askNASA questions.

Watch at http://nasa.gov/live  or on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NASASunScience/videos/1752508888129660/ ...

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NASA ScienceCasts: The Parker Solar Probe - A Mission to Touch the Sun

ScienceAtNASA

Опубликовано: 8 авг. 2018 г.

The Parker Solar Probe will help scientists learn more about the solar wind, an exotic stew of magnetic forces, plasma and particles.

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Сообщение 45-го КК

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Объявлена ACA

Airspace Closure Area

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Официально опубликована LHA

Launch Hazard Area

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старт пройдёт в период солнечного затмения.
рискуют, однако.

наверное, как в анекдоте - "мы всё продумали, полетите на солнце ночью"

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Прогноз погоды L-2 (на 2018-08-11)

Delta IV PSP L-2 Launch Forecast

70% GO

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https://blogs.nasa.gov/parkersolarprobe/2018/08/09/parker-solar-probe-proceeds-toward-launch-aug-11/

Parker Solar Probe Proceeds Toward Launch Aug. 11

Linda Herridge
Posted Aug 9, 2018 at 11:06 am

The Parker Solar Probe mission and launch teams today concluded a successful Launch Readiness Review. There are no technical issues being worked at this time. Teams are proceeding for liftoff on Saturday, Aug. 11, at 3:33 a.m. EDT. On a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket with NASA's Parker Solar Probe.

Parker Solar Probe will provide unprecedented information about our Sun, where changing conditions can spread out into the solar system to affect Earth and other worlds. The spacecraft will fly directly into the Sun's atmosphere where, from a distance of – at the closest approach — approximately 4 million miles from its surface, the spacecraft will trace how energy and heat move through the Sun's atmosphere and explore what accelerates the solar wind and solar energetic particles.

Meteorologists with the U.S. Air Force 45th Space Wing are predicting a 70 percent chance of favorable weather on launch day. Primary weather concerns are anvil clouds and cumulus clouds.

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Parker Solar Probe Instruments: SWEAP

JHU Applied Physics Laboratory

Опубликовано: 7 авг. 2018 г.

The Solar Wind Electrons Alphas and Protons investigation, or SWEAP, gathers observations using two complementary instruments: the Solar Probe Cup, or SPC, and the Solar Probe Analyzers, or SPAN. The instruments count the most abundant particles in the solar wind — electrons, protons and helium ions — and measure such properties as velocity, density, and temperature to improve our understanding of the solar wind and coronal plasma. SWEAP was built mainly at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and at the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley. The institutions jointly operate the instrument. The principal investigator is Justin Kasper from the University of Michigan.

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Parker Solar Probe Instruments: WISPR

JHU Applied Physics Laboratory

Опубликовано: 7 авг. 2018 г.

The Wide-Field Imager for Parker Solar Probe is the only imaging instrument aboard the spacecraft. WISPR looks at the large-scale structure of the corona and solar wind before the spacecraft flies through it. About the size of a shoebox, WISPR takes images fr om afar of structures like coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, jets and other ejecta from the Sun. These structures travel out from the Sun and eventually overtake the spacecraft, wh ere the spacecraft's other instruments take in-situ measurements. WISPR helps link what's happening in the large-scale coronal structure to the detailed physical measurements being captured directly in the near-Sun environment. WISPR was designed and developed by the Solar and Heliophysics Physics Branch at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC (principal investigator Russell Howard), which will also develop the observing program.

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Parker Solar Probe Thermal Protection System Installation

JHU Applied Physics Laboratory

Опубликовано: 8 авг. 2018 г.

On June 27, 2018, Parker Solar Probe's heat shield – called the Thermal Protection System, or TPS – was installed on the spacecraft.

A mission sixty years in the making, Parker Solar Probe will make a historic journey to the Sun's corona, a region of the solar atmosphere. With the help of its revolutionary heat shield, now permanently attached to the spacecraft in preparation for its August 2018 launch, the spacecraft's orbit will carry it to within 4 million miles of the Sun's fiercely hot surface, where it will collect unprecedented data about the inner workings of the corona.

The eight-foot-diameter heat shield will safeguard everything within its umbra, the shadow it casts on the spacecraft. At Parker Solar Probe's closest approach to the Sun, temperatures on the heat shield will reach nearly 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit, but the spacecraft and its instruments will be kept at a relatively comfortable temperature of about 85 degrees Fahrenheit.

The heat shield is made of two panels of superheated carbon-carbon composite sandwiching a lightweight 4.5-inch-thick carbon foam core. The Sun-facing side of the heat shield is also sprayed with a specially formulated white coating to reflect as much of the Sun's energy away from the spacecraft as possible.

The heat shield itself weighs only about 160 pounds – here on Earth, the foam core is 97% air.

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