NASA Waits With Bated Breath for Signal From Sun-Exploring Spacecraft

This week, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe attempted to get closer to the Sun than any other human-made object. But due to a planned communications blackout, the team behind the mission won’t know if the spacecraft’s daring quest was a success for at least another day.

On Tuesday, the Parker Solar Probe was set to come within an uncomfortably close distance of 3.8 million miles (6.1 million kilometers) from the Sun’s surface, during which time the spacecraft was supposed to be out of contact with mission control. According to NASA, the probe is scheduled to transmit a beacon on Friday to confirm whether or not it survived its record-breaking close encounter with the Sun.

“No human-made object has ever passed this close to a star, so Parker will truly be returning data from uncharted territory,” Nick Pinkine, Parker Solar Probe mission operations manager at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, said in a statement. “We’re excited to hear back from the spacecraft when it swings back around the Sun.”

If successful, Tuesday’s flyby will be the first of three encounters at the same distance. During its perihelion, the spacecraft will to zip past the Sun at a whopping 430,000 miles per hour, breaking its own record for the fastest any human-made object has traveled. At such a speed, the probe would be able to travel from Washington, D.C. to Philadelphia in one second. During its approach, the spacecraft must withstand piping hot temperatures of 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (982.2 degrees Celsius), while keeping its internal temperatures a much cooler 85 degrees Fahrenheit (29.4 degrees Celsius). Parker does this with a several-inch-thick heat shield, which reflects the majority of the Sun’s heat.

The Parker Solar Probe launched in August 2018 to observe our host star at an unprecedented—which is to say, close—distance. Since its launch, the spacecraft has been gearing up for its perihelion, or closest approach, by swinging closer to the Sun with each orbit. The Parker probe has carried out 21 close approaches to the Sun, coming as close as 4.51 million miles (7.26 million km) of the solar surface. In November, the Parker Solar Probe carried out its seventh and final flyby of Venus, leveraging the planet’s gravitational pull to place the spacecraft on a trajectory towards its closest solar approach.

As it speeds its way toward the Sun’s surface, the Parker probe will be collecting valuable data about the star and how it influences the space environment around it. “This is one example of NASA’s bold missions, doing something that no one else has ever done before to answer longstanding questions about our universe,” Arik Posner, Parker Solar Probe program scientist at NASA, said in a statement. “We can’t wait to receive that first status update from the spacecraft and start receiving the science data in the coming weeks.”