On New Year’s Day, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe added to the festive cheer by sending residence extra excellent news about its record-breaking closest-ever method to the solar.
On Wednesday (Jan. 1), mission management at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland started receiving the Parker Solar Probe’s first telemetry — or housekeeping information — that confirms Parker’s techniques and science devices are “wholesome and working usually” after its historic rendezvous with the solar, NASA shared in an replace on Thursday (Jan. 2).
“All is wanting good with the spacecraft techniques and instrument operations,” Michael Buckley, a spokesperson at JHUAPL, which oversees the Parker Solar Probe mission, instructed Space.com in an e-mail. “It actually is a exceptional spacecraft!”
The newest telemetry transmission additionally confirms the Parker Solar Probe efficiently carried out the instructions programmed into its flight computer systems and that its science devices have been functioning in the course of the flyby, in accordance with the assertion. That means the spacecraft collected invaluable information about our star because it swooped to inside 3.8 million miles (6.1 million kilometers) of the solar’s floor — the closest but a spacecraft has ever gotten to our star.
“While Parker Solar Probe was nearer to the solar than another human-made object in historical past, it operated simply because it was designed to do, and made observations that nobody has been in a position to make earlier than,” Helene Winters, this system supervisor for the Parker Solar Probe mission at JHUAPL, stated within the assertion.
On Dec. 26, Parker Solar Probe signaled Earth to report it survived its record-breaking flyby of the Sun on Dec. 24. New transmissions acquired on Jan. 1 give extra particulars, confirming the spacecraft collected information in the course of the flyby, and extra: https://t.co/FzGCGTXjhoJanuary 2, 2025
The telemetry transmission, which mission management is receiving by means of NASA’s Deep Space Network, continues by means of Thursday, Buckley stated. The probe ought to beam residence its collected science information later this month, when its strongest onboard antenna will likely be in higher alignment with Earth to transmit at increased charges.
“The information that can come down from the spacecraft will likely be recent details about a spot that we, as humanity, have by no means been,” Joe Westlake, the director of the Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington, stated in a Dec. 27 replace. “It’s an incredible accomplishment.”
On Christmas Eve, the Parker Solar Probe hurtled by means of the scorching photo voltaic environment whereas touring at a most pace of 430,000 miles per hour (690,000 kilometers per hour) — quick sufficient to journey from Tokyo to Washington, D.C. inside a minute — breaking its personal report because the quickest object ever constructed.
Scientists have been out of contact with the probe in the course of the rendezvous, and simply earlier than midnight on Dec. 26, they acquired a easy but much-anticipated beacon tone indicating the spacecraft survived the encounter and is working usually. Thanks to a customized, 4.5-inch-thick (11.4-centimeter-thick) warmth protect, the spacecraft might efficiently endure temperatures as much as 1,800 levels Fahrenheit (982 levels Celsius), NASA beforehand stated.
Signal Received. 📡NASA’s #ParkerSolarProbe made historical past with its closest go to the Sun—3.8M miles at 430,000 mph. A sign acquired at APL confirms the probe is wholesome & working usually. Telemetry information anticipated Jan. 1. https://t.co/x0RIfx4clc @NASASun @NASASolarSystemDecember 27, 2024
Scientists hope information from Parker will assist them decode longstanding mysteries about our solar, comparable to why its tenuous outer environment, the corona, will get a whole lot of instances hotter the farther it stretches from the solar’s floor.
“The information is so essential for the science group as a result of it offers us one other vantage level,” Kelly Korreck, a heliophysicist at NASA Headquarters who labored on one of many mission’s devices, stated within the assertion. “By getting firsthand accounts of what is occurring within the photo voltaic environment, Parker Solar Probe has revolutionized our understanding of the solar.”
The spacecraft is scheduled for 2 extra flybys in 2025 at roughly the identical pace and distance from the solar — on March 22 and June 19.
