NASA is waiting with bated breath for the signal from the spacecraft exploring the sun

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

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

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

If successful, Tuesday’s flyby will be the first of three meetings at the same distance. During its perihelion, the spacecraft will pass the Sun at a speed of 430,000 miles per hour, breaking its own record for the fastest a man-made object has traveled. At such a speed, the probe could travel from Washington, DC to Philadelphia in one second. During its approach, the spacecraft must withstand a hot temperature of 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (982.2 degrees Celsius), while maintaining its internal temperature much cooler than 85 degrees Fahrenheit (29.4 degrees Celsius). Parker does this with a heat shield of several inches, which reflects most of the sun’s heat.

The Parker Solar Probe was launched in August 2018 to observe our host star at an unprecedented distance, that is, close. Since its launch, the spacecraft has been preparing for its perihelion, or closest approach, swinging closer to the Sun with each orbit. The Parker probe made 21 close approaches to the Sun, coming within 4.51 million miles (7.26 million km) of the solar surface. In November, the Parker Solar Probe performed its seventh and last flyby of Venusharnessing the planet’s gravitational pull to put the spacecraft on a trajectory toward its closest solar approach.

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