NASA launches Parker Solar Probe (part-530)

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, Mankind’s first mission to touch the Sun, has been launched on a seven year long journey to unlock the mysteries of our star’s fiery outer atmosphere and its effects on Space weather. Liftoff took place from space Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in the US on August 12, 2018. The space craft complete around 18 month’s journey. Delta IV Heavy rocket of United Launch Alliance carried the spacecraft parker solar probe.

The spacecraft will travel directly into the Sun’s atmosphere, about four million miles from its surface and more than seven times closer than any spacecraft has come before, thanks to its innovative Thermal Projection System.

The $1.5 billion mission will perform the closest-ever observation of a star when it travels through the Sun’s outer atmosphere, called the corona.
It will make 24 passes through the corona during its seven year mission. The mission will rely on measurements and imagine to revolutionize our understanding of the corona and how processes there ultimately affect near Earth Space.
The Parker Solar Probe carries a lineup of instruments to study the Sun both remotely and in situ, or directly. Together, the data from these instruments should help scientists answer three foundational questions about our star.

Parker Solar Probe will explore the corona, a region of the sun only seen from Earth when the Moon blacks out the Sun’s bright face during total solar eclipses. The corona holds the answers to many of scientists’ outstanding questions about the Sun’s activity and processes.