Slashdot Mirror
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.
If this had been a SpaceX launch, that fact would likely be front-and-center to this submission - NASA would probably be a footnote at best. Shouldn’t we give the same love to ULA?
#DeleteChrome
So when does it land on the sun?
It won't land. It will just orbit very near the sun. The orbit adjustments (via Venus fly-bys) will take about 7 years.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
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.
At night, of course.
"it'll be first and foremost their products, the missiles, dishing out the nuclear hell."
As if SpaceX wouldn't take a bite if the government offered them a bit of the ballistic missile pie.
ummm so it's safe to say you would rather be run over by a Tesla than a Humvee? Or did I miss the point of your statement?
Offended? Find a safe space and cry yourself to sleep.
That would be the military-industrial complex that *has kept you and your parents alive, despite unprecedented threats, for the last 70 years or so", to you, son.
As if SpaceX wouldn't take a bite if the government offered them a bit of the ballistic missile pie.
I heard that the government is looking into this.
After internal reviews, they've realized that it's wasteful to deploy hundreds of disposable ICBMs, when they could instead do the job with just a handful of missiles that can be reloaded time and again.
If we have World War III that ends civilization, it'll be first and foremost their products, the missiles, dishing out the nuclear hell.
Cuts both ways, that old saw of yours. Those Boeings that take vacationers, businesspeople and haul all that freight were born out of jets of war. The B-47 and 52 gave them the experience to make the 707 and its military cousin the KC-135.
Besides.. so what? I fail to see the point of your point. That missile and aircraft makers also make tools of war besides tools of exploration and commerce? The line between the two is so wispy it may not even be there at all.
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
The five main goals are listed with acronyms one of which is rather comical in as much that it is headed and labeled as ISIS.
Integrated Science Investigation of the Sun (ISIS)— This investigation will measure energetic electrons, protons and heavy ions. The instrument suite is composed of two independent instruments, EPI-Hi and EPI-Lo. The Principal investigator is David McComas, at the Princeton University.
Rather ironic because Isis was the bringer of the the god Osiris and today has been twisted into other much more sinister context. Must give some of the religious right in Washington the willies looking at what Nasa is doing with this probe. Lets just hope that the probe doesn't pull a budgetary Icarus on Nasa before all the really important data is in. This mission is one that makes a great deal of sense from a scientific stand point and could very well deliver field data that will be ground breaking and a technological gold mine.
This message was not sent from an iPhone because Peter Sellers really was a deviated prevert without a dime for the call
Agreed. At least they could have kept the graphics going - they didn't even have to have the commentary (although it would have been nice).
Now how are you going to absorb the Suns rays at night?
As if SpaceX wouldn't take a bite if the government offered them a bit of the ballistic missile pie.
They wouldn't because they're not interested in solid rockets.
Ezekiel 23:20
Why this probe has not solar panels?
I don't know why, because it *does* have them. I mean, it's kind of obvious to use them.
Ezekiel 23:20
If it's really a "Parker probe", it will instead crash into the sun at the last minute before it would have sent data. (You have to be a fan of Numberphile on YouTube to get this running joke.)
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Why this probe has not solar panels?
Without electronic energy, no message could be sent by the radio to the Earth.
I suspect that its supply uses radioactive fuel as the uranium or the plutonium,
It does read the wiki! It has primary retractable panels as well as one that can be cooled during the hottest part of the missions during the closest approach(s) to the sun. The shielding used is absolutely crucial to the design. If there are any faults in the autonomous systems that safeguard the probe then the probe will be a one shot deal and would become a fast fry fly by better named Icarus. The software and hardware used for autonomous control is ground breaking and hopefully will not all be kept under wraps by the military, I am sure there are many more autonomous systems that are under secret development elsewhere for Donald's new "space force" but the ones Nasa is using for this probe should be public domain and available to industry other than the US military.
This message was not sent from an iPhone because Peter Sellers really was a deviated prevert without a dime for the call
How will the people of 1986 comprehend why a strange probe of unknown origin crashes into the San Francisco bay?
It does have solar panels, but they are not very big because the sunlight on it will be very bright. In fact it has two sets -- bigger ones for use further from the sun, which can be folded away, and smaller ones with extra cooling pipes which can be used closer to the Sun where the light is brighter. Even they will just need to "peep" out from behind the heat shield at the closest approaches.
Please, this time, no "at night" joke. Ah, too late.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
They launched it at night. Cue Polish/Italian/$downtrodden joke here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
oh, I thought we spent the last 70 years attacking people that didn't attack us. in other words, warmongering.
it's not as impressive when a company that has beem building rockets for decades builds yet another rocket.
they've been making rockets for decades, not as impressive, that's the point.
they've been making rockets for decades, not as impressive, that's the point.
Then why didn't you say it, instead of going off on that nuclear hell tangent?
As for not impressive, I beg to differ. The "legacy" rocket guys got us the Saturn V.
Call me when Space X does that. And... keep in mind Saturn and its engines were pretty-much hand-crafted, hand-fitted, designed with slipsticks and paper and pencil. Now, which one seems more impressive?
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
If WW3 breaks out, Elon will figure out a way to turn a Falcon 9 into an ICBM faster than you can say 'fanboys tend to ignore facts'.
This is your sig. There are thousands more, but this one is yours.
The orbit adjustments (via Venus fly-bys) will take about 7 years.
This is one of those interesting facts about orbital dynamics. Turns out it's actually really hard to hit the sun or even get close to it. It's actually easier to leave the solar system altogether than it is to send a probe to the Sun from Earth. MinutePhysics did a very good explanation why this is the case.
As for not impressive, I beg to differ. The "legacy" rocket guys got us the Saturn V.
Not to diminish the Saturn V as a technical accomplishment but you are comparing apples to oranges. The Saturn V was a one-time only crash program with an effectively unlimited budget (by comparison) to make a handful of rockets that would never be (and should never be) repeated. From an economic standpoint the Saturn V was hugely wasteful, unrepeatable, and we don't use it or any direct successor in any rocket today for that fact alone. We learned a lot from the Saturn V but let's not pretend that comparing its perceived impressiveness to the Falcon 9/Heavy is a useful exercise.
And... keep in mind Saturn and its engines were pretty-much hand-crafted, hand-fitted, designed with slipsticks and paper and pencil. Now, which one seems more impressive?
The Saturn V was no doubt an astonishing technical achievement and we learned many lessons from it but we aren't flying Saturn V direct successor rockets today. Why? We don't make things the same way today for very good reasons. The Saturn V was built the way it was out of necessity, not because that is the best way to build rockets. No thought or effort was given to making a reliable, repeatable, economic design. Each one was unique and hand crafted which might be great for decorative jewelry or supercars but it's not a good thing for reliable transportation. You want rockets that are made as simply and identically as possible and the Saturn V was neither as you point out.
Just because we can make something more complex doesn't make it a good idea to do so. (See the Space Shuttle) It actually diminishes the technical achievement to some small degree if anything. As an engineer I'm rarely blown away by the guy who designs a system that works well once with a huge amount of engineers massaging it, not matter how complicated the system. It's kind of like the fact that it's much easier to design a pretty supercar that runs well for a few hundred miles versus designing a family sedan that has to run well for hundreds of thousands of miles and sell orders of magnitude more units for far less money per unit. I assure you it's a LOT easier to do make a small number of high priced supercars than the reliable and economic mass produced sedan. That doesn't mean we can't appreciate the supercar for what it is and what it does but it's not really what you want at the end of the day unless you are blowing money for grins and giggles.
Your mind is the thing that went off on the tangent.
Yes yes, two those companies along with NAA got us the Saturn V.
But that's just one more thing on the list that makes the Delta IV not impressive, since they already did bigger rockets decades before. That's my point, it's not as impressive when those old war er defense contractors do something.
SpaceX is different
After WWW III they'll have sign just like McD's
"over 3 billion served"
I'm not finding any information where the court ordered ULA to be merged from Lockheed and Boeing.
Can you provide a link?
So when does it land on the sun?
It will not land (as others replied), it will come closer to the Sun with every highly elliptical orbit with the help of Venus.
First close in just several weeks (first perihelion on November 1), and every next will take the probe closer to finally skim the Sun's corona with distance of about 6mln km (~3.7mln mi) on Dec 19, 2024.
Sun doesn't have a solid surface to land on, just plasma, has a core though.
The big question the probe is to answer (not the only one though) is why the Sun's corona (this is the thing one can see during the total eclipse) is so much much hotter than its surface.
Details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Please, this time, no "at night" joke. Ah, too late.
I bet you're the sort of person who complains about Uranus...
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I'm glad it's here every single day...
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...