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NASA Successfully Launches Parker Solar Probe (engadget.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the smooth-sailing dept.

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.

9 of 63 comments (clear)

  1. Bias? by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 2

    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
    1. Re:Bias? by SpaceDave · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

    2. Re:Bias? by Memnos · · Score: 3, Informative

      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.
  2. Re:Bias? usual military-industrial complex ! by iggymanz · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  3. Re:Bias? usual military-industrial complex ! by mmmVenison · · Score: 2

    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.
  4. Re:Bias? usual military-industrial complex ! by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

  5. Re:Bias? usual military-industrial complex ! by TigerPlish · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.
  6. Re:Bias? usual military-industrial complex ! by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

    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
  7. Much better launch video by NASA by rajkiran_g · · Score: 2

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...