NASA has set a launch date for the hottest spacecraft in the solar system.
“Fly to the Sun itself,” the unforgettable Olga Voronets sang invitingly during the heyday of Soviet cosmonautics. "We'll fly …", - the cheerful chorus sang along to her. And now, after many years, people seem to have "reached a wonderful time": the dreams of the poet Yevgeny Dolmatovsky, sounded in his song "I am the Earth", finally became close to coming true. Even without us - in the sense without Roskosmos.
The Americans set out to fly to the sun itself. Recently, NASA confirmed that the launch of the spacecraft to our star will take place in early August 2018. On it - on a device called Parker Solar Probe - a protective shield is already installed, which should allow you to approach the Sun at an unprecedentedly small distance.
The Americans have been hatching plans to poke, as they say, into the thick of it since 2005. Then the project was called Solar Probe. After 3 years, it was finalized and renamed Solar Probe Plus. And last year the mission received a new - final - name Parker Solar Probe in honor of the famous American astrophysicist Eugene Parker. By the way, while he is alive, he celebrated his 90th birthday and continues to unravel the mysteries of the Sun, starting to do this back in the 50s of the last century.
The probe is equipped with protective screens.
The Parker Solar Probe was designed and built by experts from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland as part of NASA's Living With a Star program.
Initially, the start was scheduled for 2015. But it was delayed for 3 years. It is not excluded that scientists "guessed" so that the probe was near the Sun during its maximum activity. To catch the riot of the sun and fall into many solar storms.
The probe should fly by at least 2025.
Promotional video:
The gravity of Venus will help to achieve the goal of the Parker Solar Probe, past which it will fly 7 times, then approaching the star, then moving away from it. Maneuvering, the probe will at times accelerate to 700,000 kilometers per hour - no other earthly device has ever flown at such a speed.
The minimum distance from the Sun will be less than 6 million kilometers. It's very close - Mercury is 10 times further away. From the probe, our star's fireball will look 23 times larger than it appears from Earth.
- Parker Solar Probe will practically enter the atmosphere of the Sun, - promises Parker himself, - will visit where no one has ever been - in a completely unknown region of the solar system.
As noted in NASA, sending Parker Solar Probe to the solar corona, I would like to follow the strange processes that are taking place there. Namely, the behavior of the solar wind and heat transfer. And get answers to key questions in solar physics.
Scientists expect to get answers to key questions in solar physics. For example, find out why the outer atmosphere of a star is much hotter than its visible surface. Not yet aware of science, from where, in fact, the solar wind blows, affecting both the Earth and our entire solar system. What exactly raises and speeds it up?
The probe is well equipped for the tasks assigned to it.
The temperature on the sun's surface barely exceeds 6 thousand degrees. Logically, it should decrease with distance from the star. But the temperature, on the contrary, is rising. Hundreds of times. The outer atmosphere of the Sun - the very corona - is heated up to a million degrees. This misunderstanding has been puzzling for over 60 years, since it was first discovered.
There is a mystery in the solar wind. This hot stream of charged particles, rushing from our star at a speed of several million kilometers per hour, "washes" our entire system. Planets, comets, asteroids "feel" its bursts. And next to the Sun - at the surface - there is no wind. Why?
NASA believes that the devices for the so-called coronal tomography, cameras and a telescope, which will transmit 3D images of the Sun obtained from a minimum distance, will help to figure it out. The pictures are expected to be amazing.
Arrangement of devices and cameras.
It is possible that the information collected will contribute to the fact that heliophysicists and astronomers will finally learn to predict solar flares.
They - these outbreaks - scientists have become very much afraid of lately. They predict very powerful, capable of "cutting off" electricity throughout the Earth.
REFERENCE
Iron will melt, but Parker Solar Probe won't
The size of the Parker Solar Probe is the size of a parquet SUV. The probe is refractory. Must withstand heating at 1400 - 1500 degrees Celsius. This is almost the melting point of iron. It will be protected from the heat of the sun by a porous coating made of carbon composite 11.43 centimeters thick and a shield made of the same material. Under it, as if under an umbrella, the apparatus will hide from both scorching rays and hard X-rays. The protection is light - it weighs almost nothing, but refractory.
The power supply is from solar panels. Which is natural for such a mission. Battery panels are rotatable. Their tilt angle will decrease as they approach the Sun. And part of the batteries is to hide in the shadow of the shield.
The researchers assure that the temperature inside the probe, where the equipment is installed, will be room temperature. Well, almost room temperature - 29 degrees.
In addition to instruments, the probe will be equipped with a telescope and cameras that transmit images in 3D. Experts hope to examine in detail the processes occurring on the surface of the luminary.
Parker Solar Probe will fly close to the Sun at a speed of 700 thousand kilometers per hour.
The probe will not be near the Sun all the time - it will fly in and out, moving along an elliptical trajectory.
From July 31, 2018, the start window opens - the most favorable period for launch begins. The window will be open for 20 days. During this time - on one of the days in August - Parker Solar Probe and go to the Sun.
In 2020, the European probe Solar Orbiter will also go to the Sun, the goals of which are close to those of the Parker Solar Probe.
OLD ANECDOTE
- The Americans have landed on the moon. How shall we answer, comrades? - asks Brezhnev members of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee. And he himself suggests: - We will send astronauts to the Sun!
- Leonid Ilyich! They will burn! See how bright the sun is.
- I see, not a fool. I figured it out: they will fly at night.
VLADIMIR LAGOVSKI