NASA’s Solar Probe Makes Historic Flyby, Sets New Record for Closest Approach Ever to Sun

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe is healthy and operating normally as it approaches its record-breaking solar flyby on Christmas Eve.

“This is one example of NASA’s bold missions, doing something that no one else has ever done before to answer longstanding questions about our universe,” said Arik Posner, Parker Solar Probe program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “We can’t wait to receive that first status update from the spacecraft and start receiving the science data in the coming weeks.”

The Parker Solar Probe is now on course to fly just 3.8 million miles (around 6.1 million kilometers) from the surface of the Sun on Tuesday, Dec. 24, at 6:53 a.m. EST. During closest approach, or perihelion, mission operations will be out of contact with the spacecraft, and Parker will transmit another beacon tone on Friday, Dec. 27, to confirm its health following the close flyby.

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“No human-made object has ever passed this close to a star, so Parker will truly be returning data from uncharted territory,” said Nick Pinkine, Parker Solar Probe mission operations manager at APL. “We’re excited to hear back from the spacecraft when it swings back around the Sun.”

On a mission to “touch the Sun,” NASA’s Parker Solar Probe became the first spacecraft to fly through the corona – the Sun’s upper atmosphere – in 2021. With every orbit bringing it closer, the probe faces brutal heat and radiation to provide humanity with unprecedented observations, visiting the only star we can study up close.

To conduct its groundbreaking research, the Parker Solar Probe and its instruments are protected by a 4.5-inch (11.43 cm) carbon-composite shield designed to withstand temperatures of nearly 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit (1,377 Celsius).

Parker Solar Probe was developed as a part of NASA’s Living With a Star program to explore aspects of the Sun-Earth system that directly affect life and society. The Living With a Star program is managed by the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. APL manages Parker Solar Probe for NASA and designed, built and operates the mission.

The mission is named for the late Dr. Eugene N. Parker, who pioneered our modern understanding of the Sun. As a young professor at the University of Chicago in the mid-1950s, Parker developed a mathematical theory that predicted the solar wind, the constant outflow of solar material from the Sun. Throughout his career, Parker revolutionized the field time and again, advancing ideas that addressed the fundamental questions about the workings of our Sun and stars throughout the universe.