Parker Solar Probe
The Parker Solar Probe (PSP; previously Solar Probe, Solar Probe Plus or Solar Probe+) is a NASA space probe launched in 2018 with the mission of making observations of the outer corona of the Sun. It will approach to within 9.86 solar radii (6.9 million km or 4.3 million miles) from the center of the Sun, and by 2025 will travel, at closest approach, as fast as 690,000 km/h (430,000 mph) or 191 km/s, which is 0.064% the speed of light. It is the fastest object ever built.
Model of the Parker Solar Probe | |||||||||||||||
| Names | Solar Probe (before 2002) Solar Probe Plus (2010–2017) Parker Solar Probe (since 2017) | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mission type | Heliophysics | ||||||||||||||
| Operator | NASA / Applied Physics Laboratory | ||||||||||||||
| COSPAR ID | 2018-065A | ||||||||||||||
| SATCAT no. | 43592 | ||||||||||||||
| Website | parkersolarprobe | ||||||||||||||
| Mission duration | 7 years (planned) Elapsed: 5 years and 6 months | ||||||||||||||
| Spacecraft properties | |||||||||||||||
| Manufacturer | Applied Physics Laboratory | ||||||||||||||
| Launch mass | 685 kg (1,510 lb) | ||||||||||||||
| Dry mass | 555 kg (1,224 lb) | ||||||||||||||
| Payload mass | 50 kg (110 lb) | ||||||||||||||
| Dimensions | 1.0 m × 3.0 m × 2.3 m (3.3 ft × 9.8 ft × 7.5 ft) | ||||||||||||||
| Power | 343 W (at closest approach) | ||||||||||||||
| Start of mission | |||||||||||||||
| Launch date | 12 August 2018, 07:31 UTC | ||||||||||||||
| Rocket | Delta IV Heavy / Star-48BV | ||||||||||||||
| Launch site | Cape Canaveral, SLC-37 | ||||||||||||||
| Contractor | United Launch Alliance | ||||||||||||||
| Orbital parameters | |||||||||||||||
| Reference system | Heliocentric orbit | ||||||||||||||
| Semi-major axis | 0.388 AU (58.0 million km; 36.1 million mi) | ||||||||||||||
| Perihelion altitude | 0.046 AU (6.9 million km; 4.3 million mi; 9.86 R☉) | ||||||||||||||
| Aphelion altitude | 0.73 AU (109 million km; 68 million mi) | ||||||||||||||
| Inclination | 3.4° | ||||||||||||||
| Period | 88 days | ||||||||||||||
| Sun | |||||||||||||||
| Transponders | |||||||||||||||
| Band | Ka-band X-band | ||||||||||||||
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The official insignia for the mission. | |||||||||||||||
The project was announced in the fiscal 2009 budget year. The cost of the project is US$1.5 billion. Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory designed and built the spacecraft, which was launched on 12 August 2018. It became the first NASA spacecraft named after a living (at the time) person, honoring physicist Eugene Newman Parker, professor emeritus at the University of Chicago.
A memory card containing the names of over 1.1 million people was mounted on a plaque and installed below the spacecraft's high-gain antenna on 18 May 2018. The card also contains photos of Parker and a copy of his 1958 scientific paper predicting important aspects of solar physics.
On 29 October 2018, at about 18:04 UTC, the spacecraft became the closest ever artificial object to the Sun. The previous record, 42.73 million kilometres (26.55 million miles) from the Sun's surface, was set by the Helios 2 spacecraft in April 1976. As of its perihelion 27 September 2023, the Parker Solar Probe's closest approach is 7.26 million kilometres (4.51 million miles). This will be surpassed after the remaining flyby of Venus.