Dec. 21 (UPI) — NASA’s Parker Solar Probe is working usually and stays on schedule for a record-setting shut encounter with the Sun on Christmas Eve, mission controllers say.
All spacecraft techniques on the probe are working usually because it nears its closest level to the Sun at 3.8 million miles above the fiery photo voltaic floor, the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory mentioned in an replace issued Friday.
“No human-made object has ever handed this near a star, so Parker will really be returning knowledge from uncharted territory,” mentioned Nick Pinkine, Parker Solar Probe mission operations supervisor at APL. “We’re excited to listen to again from the spacecraft when it swings again across the Sun.”
APL, primarily based in Laurel, Md., mentioned it obtained a transmission from the probe at 7:20 p.m. EST on Friday through NASA’s Deep Space Network complicated in Canberra, Australia. It indicated all techniques are “go” for the Christmas Eve fly-by.
NASA officers hailed the information as a possible boon to area science. In making humanity’s closest-ever method to a star, it would function the fruits of what NASA calls “a virtually 70-year quest to unravel the Sun’s secrets and techniques.”
“This is one instance of NASA’s daring missions, doing one thing that nobody else has ever executed earlier than to reply longstanding questions on our universe,” mentioned Arik Posner, Parker Solar Probe program scientist on the company’s headquarters in Washington.
“We cannot wait to obtain that first standing replace from the spacecraft and begin receiving the science knowledge within the coming weeks,” he added.
The spacecraft was launched in 2018, a long time after it was first conceived. It took three years to reach on the Sun and has traveled nearer to the G-type main-sequence star than any of its predecessors.
In 2021, it flew by way of the Sun’s higher environment, the corona, and took some particle samples. The company known as it a “monumental” second and a “big leap for photo voltaic science.”
On Nov. 6, the Parker Solar Probe accomplished its seventh and closing Venus gravity-assist maneuver, passing inside 240 miles of Venus’ floor. That flyby adjusted its trajectory into the ultimate orbital configuration of its main mission of the upcoming shut photo voltaic encounter.
