Post by Andrei Tchentchik on Aug 19, 2020 15:31:57 GMT 2
(.#477).- Parker Solar Probe, the NASA probe that will graze the Sun, leaves tomorrow.
Parker Solar Probe, the NASA probe that wants to graze the Sun, takes off tomorrow.
Rémy Decourt article
Posted Aug 10 2018
Archives
After several decades of waiting, for lack of sufficiently mature technologies to approach as close as possible to the Sun, a probe will finally take off to "touch" the Sun. This NASA probe, dubbed Parker Solar Probe, will be launched on Saturday August 11. In particular, it has an instrument developed by researchers from CNRS, the University of Orléans and Cnes, whose manager detailed the objectives of the mission. In all, five French laboratories are involved in this mission aimed at better understanding the Sun.
It is an unprecedented mission that is about to take off for the Sun. It is certainly not the first time that a satellite has been launched to study our star, but it is the first time that a probe will reach the solar corona, one of the last places in the Solar System where no probe is s has ventured before.
This idea of sending a mission as close as possible to the solar corona dates back several decades. However, NASA had to wait because it did not have the technology to protect a spacecraft and its instruments from the heat of the Sun. Recent advances in materials science have allowed it to manufacture a heat shield, not only to withstand the extreme heat of the sun, but also to stay cool in the back.
Tomorrow, therefore, the Parker Solar Probe probe will be launched from Cape Canaveral air base in Florida, aboard a Delta IV Heavy launcher, the most powerful American launcher in service. It will fly to the Sun with an amount of energy 55 times greater than that necessary to reach Mars!
The Parker Solar Probe probe installed in the casing of its launcher. © Nasa, Leif Heimbold
The fastest satellite ever
The Sun will be reached in November, just three months after its launch. To reach it so quickly, the probe will beat the speed record with respect to the Sun and will reach 700,000 km per hour. At this speed, compared to Earth, Parker Solar Probe would connect Paris to Sydney in less than two minutes! The previous speed record relative to the Sun was established in 1976 by the Helios B mission with a speed of 252,782 km / h.
It will obviously not permanently park as close to the Sun as possible during its mission. The probe will make twenty-five passages near the Sun, interspersed with passages near Earth's orbit during which the collected data can be sent to scientists. Its last three passages bring it closest to the Sun, about only six million kilometers from the solar surface. A distance to compare with the average diameter of the Sun of 1,392,000 kilometers, 109 times larger than that of the Earth.
Its objective is to try to solve one of the greatest mysteries of contemporary physics: how can the temperature of its atmosphere exceed one million degrees when that of its surface reaches only 6,000 ° C? Its measurements will also make it possible to study other phenomena, such as the genesis of solar winds.
An American mission with a strong French contribution
This Nasa mission benefits from the expertise of five French laboratories, such as the Laboratory of Physics and Chemistry of the Environment and Space (LPC2E; CNRS / Cnes / University of Orléans) which has developed an on-board instrument on board Parker Solar Probe: its induction magnetometer will measure variations in the magnetic field in the solar corona. These measurements will therefore be crucial to understanding how it can be heated to temperatures exceeding one million degrees.
In addition, the teams from the Laboratory for Spatial Studies and Instrumentation in Astrophysics (Observatoire de Paris-PSL / CNRS / Université Paris Diderot / Sorbonne Université) and the Laboratory of Plasma Physics (CNRS / Observatoire de Paris-PSL / École polytechnique / Université Paris-Sud / Sorbonne Université) participated in the development of a radio receiver and two spectrometers, manufactured in the United States. As for the Institute for Research in Astrophysics and Planetology (CNRS / Cnes / Université Toulouse III-Paul Sabatier), it will be involved in the exploitation of images from the on-board camera by the probe. Finally, the solar furnace of the CNRS Processes, Materials and Solar Energy laboratory made it possible to test Parker Solar Probe materials and sensors in conditions close to those they will face around the Sun.
F I N .
Parker Solar Probe, the NASA probe that wants to graze the Sun, takes off tomorrow.
Rémy Decourt article
Posted Aug 10 2018
Archives
After several decades of waiting, for lack of sufficiently mature technologies to approach as close as possible to the Sun, a probe will finally take off to "touch" the Sun. This NASA probe, dubbed Parker Solar Probe, will be launched on Saturday August 11. In particular, it has an instrument developed by researchers from CNRS, the University of Orléans and Cnes, whose manager detailed the objectives of the mission. In all, five French laboratories are involved in this mission aimed at better understanding the Sun.
It is an unprecedented mission that is about to take off for the Sun. It is certainly not the first time that a satellite has been launched to study our star, but it is the first time that a probe will reach the solar corona, one of the last places in the Solar System where no probe is s has ventured before.
This idea of sending a mission as close as possible to the solar corona dates back several decades. However, NASA had to wait because it did not have the technology to protect a spacecraft and its instruments from the heat of the Sun. Recent advances in materials science have allowed it to manufacture a heat shield, not only to withstand the extreme heat of the sun, but also to stay cool in the back.
Tomorrow, therefore, the Parker Solar Probe probe will be launched from Cape Canaveral air base in Florida, aboard a Delta IV Heavy launcher, the most powerful American launcher in service. It will fly to the Sun with an amount of energy 55 times greater than that necessary to reach Mars!
The Parker Solar Probe probe installed in the casing of its launcher. © Nasa, Leif Heimbold
The fastest satellite ever
The Sun will be reached in November, just three months after its launch. To reach it so quickly, the probe will beat the speed record with respect to the Sun and will reach 700,000 km per hour. At this speed, compared to Earth, Parker Solar Probe would connect Paris to Sydney in less than two minutes! The previous speed record relative to the Sun was established in 1976 by the Helios B mission with a speed of 252,782 km / h.
It will obviously not permanently park as close to the Sun as possible during its mission. The probe will make twenty-five passages near the Sun, interspersed with passages near Earth's orbit during which the collected data can be sent to scientists. Its last three passages bring it closest to the Sun, about only six million kilometers from the solar surface. A distance to compare with the average diameter of the Sun of 1,392,000 kilometers, 109 times larger than that of the Earth.
Its objective is to try to solve one of the greatest mysteries of contemporary physics: how can the temperature of its atmosphere exceed one million degrees when that of its surface reaches only 6,000 ° C? Its measurements will also make it possible to study other phenomena, such as the genesis of solar winds.
An American mission with a strong French contribution
This Nasa mission benefits from the expertise of five French laboratories, such as the Laboratory of Physics and Chemistry of the Environment and Space (LPC2E; CNRS / Cnes / University of Orléans) which has developed an on-board instrument on board Parker Solar Probe: its induction magnetometer will measure variations in the magnetic field in the solar corona. These measurements will therefore be crucial to understanding how it can be heated to temperatures exceeding one million degrees.
In addition, the teams from the Laboratory for Spatial Studies and Instrumentation in Astrophysics (Observatoire de Paris-PSL / CNRS / Université Paris Diderot / Sorbonne Université) and the Laboratory of Plasma Physics (CNRS / Observatoire de Paris-PSL / École polytechnique / Université Paris-Sud / Sorbonne Université) participated in the development of a radio receiver and two spectrometers, manufactured in the United States. As for the Institute for Research in Astrophysics and Planetology (CNRS / Cnes / Université Toulouse III-Paul Sabatier), it will be involved in the exploitation of images from the on-board camera by the probe. Finally, the solar furnace of the CNRS Processes, Materials and Solar Energy laboratory made it possible to test Parker Solar Probe materials and sensors in conditions close to those they will face around the Sun.
F I N .
