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NASA Successfully Launches Parker Solar Probe (engadget.com)
NASA's Sun-chasing Parker Solar Probe successfully launched this morning at 3:31AM. A couple hours later, NASA confirmed that the vessel was healthy.
The probe still has a ways to go before it's conducting scientific studies. "It'll spend its first week in space deploying its high-gain antenna, the first part of its electric field antennas and its magnetometer," reports Engadget. "In early September, the probe will start a roughly four-week instrument shakedown to be sure it's ready for science gathering." From the report: The trip to the Sun will take a while. NASA's probe will pass by Venus a total of seven times (starting in early October) as it uses the planet's gravity to whip itself ever closer to the star. The spacecraft will make its first close approach in early November, when it will travel 15 million miles from the Sun -- inside the Sun's corona (aka the solar atmosphere). Its closest approach will put it at just 3.8 million miles from the Sun, at which point it should be the fastest-ever human-made object with a speed of 430,000MPH. The first science data should return sometime in December. The New York Times has a neat video explaining how the Parker Solar Probe will touch the Sun. Meanwhile, Fox News has a dialogue-free clip of the actual launch.
The probe still has a ways to go before it's conducting scientific studies. "It'll spend its first week in space deploying its high-gain antenna, the first part of its electric field antennas and its magnetometer," reports Engadget. "In early September, the probe will start a roughly four-week instrument shakedown to be sure it's ready for science gathering." From the report: The trip to the Sun will take a while. NASA's probe will pass by Venus a total of seven times (starting in early October) as it uses the planet's gravity to whip itself ever closer to the star. The spacecraft will make its first close approach in early November, when it will travel 15 million miles from the Sun -- inside the Sun's corona (aka the solar atmosphere). Its closest approach will put it at just 3.8 million miles from the Sun, at which point it should be the fastest-ever human-made object with a speed of 430,000MPH. The first science data should return sometime in December. The New York Times has a neat video explaining how the Parker Solar Probe will touch the Sun. Meanwhile, Fox News has a dialogue-free clip of the actual launch.
ULA is a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing, the usual normal "defense" contractors. Before ULA took over the Delta IV Heavy was developed by McDonald Douglas...
If we have World War III that ends civilization, it'll be first and foremost their products, the missiles, dishing out the nuclear hell.
so hardly comparable to SpaceX.
To be newsworthy it has to have some novelty factor. In the early days of SpaceX, any of their launches were novel. Likewise, early ULA launches were novel and deserved coverage.
Falcon 9 launches are no longer novel so they don't get as much coverage. The next half dozen Falcon Heavy launches will have novelty so they'll probably get a lot of coverage but eventually they'll be like the Falcon 9 and ULA's Delta IV Heavy. The reason the Delta IV isn't "font-and-center" is that it's an established launch vehicle with a pretty solid record, it's expected to succeed and, frankly, it's not particularly newsworthy.
It just falls in to the gravity well of the Sun.
I agree that it a very unique mission. But as for "just fall[ing] into the gravity well of the Sun", it requires many times more energy to accomplish that "fall" than it takes to put a similar mass in orbit around Mars. In terms of delta-V, it's a launch from Earth followed by a very costly, highly gravity-assisted, highly choreographed, de-orbit burn.
I don't trust atoms -- they make up stuff.