Concern Over the Spacecraft: NASA’s Solar Probe Approaches the Sun, Communication Paused for Several Days

For several days, communication with the probe will be cut off. Therefore, we will have to wait until December 28 at 5:00 GMT to find out if the probe withstood the extreme heat of the solar atmosphere.

1,400°C to withstand for the probe

The first mission to explore the solar atmosphere in situ and launched in 2018, the American Parker Solar Probe (PSP) will soon set a new record by once again reaching a point even closer to the solar atmosphere. As indicated by the national space study center, the years 2023 to 2025 also mark the probe's flybys where it comes closest to the Sun.

The solar probe is currently penetrating hitherto unexplored regions of space, as it prepares to dive into the star's outer atmosphere. It will therefore have to withstand temperatures of around 1,400°C as well as strong radiation.

Use your speed to get out of trouble

But then, how will the probe be able to withstand such a temperature? Thanks to its speed: the idea is that it can enter and exit the solar atmosphere quickly. In particular, it will reach a speed never before achieved by a machine designed by Man, “hurtling at 430,000 mph” (approximately 692,018 km/h) as relayed by the BBC.

A way for scientists to have a more concrete overview of the extreme temperatures that the solar atmosphere can reach. “For centuries, people have studied the Sun, but you don't feel the atmosphere of a place until you visit it. So we can't really feel our star's atmosphere unless we fly through it”, Dr Nicola Fox, NASA’s chief scientist, explained to the BBC.

Better understand the solar atmosphere

As relayed by the BBC, the probe will be 6.2 million kilometers from the surface of the Sun at its closest. Knowing that the Earth is about 150 million kilometers from the Sun, Nicola Fox explains that on another scale, if the Earth was one meter from the Sun, it would be as if the probe was four centimeters away.

©NASA

As CNES indicates, the main missions of the probe are “the characterization of the different types of waves present in the solar wind, between perihelion (9.86 solar radii) and aphelion (55 solar radii)”, since this information is “the keys to understanding heating and solar wind acceleration”.

While waiting for this information, Nicola Fox is impatiently waiting to know if the probe will survive this new journey. “I'll worry about the spaceship. But we really designed it to withstand all these brutal conditions. It's a very durable little spaceship”, he explained to the BBC.