Parker

Solar
Probe
PROFESSOR DR RAJU G

ANU SHERCHAN
21BTRAS059
 SUMMARY

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe mission is to have a closer lookup at the Sun and its layers like
solar corona besides facing brutal heat and radiation conditions and providing unprecedented,
close-up observations of the star we live with.
The observations and research will address unsolved science questions such as how the Sun’s
corona is heated and how the solar wind is accelerated. It will also benefit humans on the
ground by making critical contributions to our ability to forecast major space weather events that
impact life and technology on Earth. Such information can shed light not only on how the Sun
drives the space environment in our solar system but also provide insight into other stars
throughout the universe.
To unlock the mysteries of the corona, Parker Solar Probe will carry four instrument suites
designed to study magnetic fields, plasma, and energetic particles, and image the corona and
solar wind. The mission will use seven Venus flybys over nearly seven years to gradually shrink
its orbit around the Sun and complete a total of 24 close approaches. The spacecraft will come
as close as about 3.8 million miles (6.2 million kilometers) to the Sun, well within Mercury's orbit
and closer to our star than any spacecraft has come before.
For the successful mission of these unprecedented investigations, the spacecraft and
instruments are protected from the Sun’s heat by a 4 .5-inch-thick carbon-composite shield,
which will withstand temperatures of nearly 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit.
Parker Solar Probe will launch no earlier than Aug . 11, 2018.

The Parker Solar Probe is a NASA space probe launched in 2018 with the mission of making
observations of the outer corona of the Sun.

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe completed its 17th close approach to the Sun on Sept. 27, 2023,
breaking its own distance record by skimming just 4.51 million miles (7.26 million kilometers)
from the solar surface.

fig:3.1

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 TABLE OF CONTENT
Parker Solar Probe Executive Summary...................................................3
Table of contents.......................................................................................4
Introduction................................................................................................5
Parker Solar Probe Mission Overview.......................................................6
Parker Solar Probe Mission Operations Mission Orbit...............................7
Data Path and Rate....................................................................................8
Solar Winds and Timeline...........................................................................9
Timeline.....................................................................................................10
Achievements............................................................................................15
Conclusion.................................................................................................18
Reference..................................................................................................18

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INTRODUCTION

NASA's Parker Solar Probe is the first spacecraft to fly directly into the Sun's corona. Launched
in 2018, the probe is on a seven-year mission to study the Sun up close and answer some of the
most fundamental questions about its behavior.

The Parker Solar Probe is named after Eugene Parker, a solar physicist who predicted the
existence of solar wind in the 1950s. The solar wind is a stream of charged particles that flows
from the Sun into space. It can have a significant impact on Earth's atmosphere and magnetic
field, causing space weather events such as geomagnetic storms and auroras.

The Parker Solar Probe is using seven Venus flybys to gradually shrink its orbit around the Sun.
By the end of its mission, it will be flying as close as 3.83 million miles (6.16 million kilometers)
to the Sun's surface. At this distance, the spacecraft will be traveling at about 430,000 miles per
hour, making it the fastest human-made object ever created.
The Parker Solar Probe is equipped with four suites of scientific instruments that will study the
Sun's corona, solar wind, and magnetic field. The spacecraft will also collect data on the
energetic particles that are accelerated in the corona and solar wind.
The Parker Solar Probe is a groundbreaking mission that is expected to revolutionize our
understanding of the Sun. The data collected by the spacecraft will help scientists answer long-
standing questions about the Sun's corona, solar wind, and energetic particles. This knowledge
will improve our ability to forecast space weather events and protect our technology and
infrastructure from their harmful effects.

Table 5.1
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Parker Solar Probe Mission Overview
Parker Solar Probe will travel through the Sun’s atmosphere, closer to the surface than
any spacecraft before it, facing brutal heat and radiation conditions—and ultimately
providing humanity with the closest-ever observations of a star.

The Sun is the only star we can study up close. By studying the stars we live with, we
learn more about stars throughout the universe. Parker Solar Probe’s primary science
goals are to trace how energy and heat move through the solar corona and to explore
what accelerates the solar wind as well as solar energetic particles.

The solar wind is the flow of ionized gases from the Sun that streams past Earth at
speeds of more than a million miles per hour (500 km per second). Disturbances in
the solar wind shake Earth’s magnetic field and pump energy into the radiation belts, part
of a set of changes in near-Earth space known as space weather. Space weather can
change the orbits of satellites, shorten their lifetimes, or interfere with onboard electronics.
The more we learn about what causes space weather—and how to predict it—the more
we can protect the satellites we depend on.
The solar wind also fills up much of the solar system, dominating the space environment
far past Earth. As we send spacecraft and astronauts further

fig:6.1

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 Parker Solar Probe Mission Operations
Mission Orbit
Parker Solar Probe will use Venus gravity assists during seven flybys over nearly seven years to
gradually bring its orbit closer to the Sun. Its first Venus flyby is two months after launch, in late
September 2018, and its first close approach to the Sun—already closer than any spacecraft has
ever gone before—will occur three months after launch, in early November 2018.
On the final three orbits, Parker Solar Probe flies to within about 3.8 million miles of the Sun’s
surface. The current record-holder for a close solar pass, the Helios 2 spacecraft, was seven
times farther away: Helios 2 came within 27 million miles of the Sun’s surface in 1976. Mercury
orbits about 36 million miles from the Sun on average, so it is nearly 10 times farther away than
Parker Solar Probe’s closest approach.
At closest approach, Parker Solar Probe hurtles around the Sun at approximately 430,000 mph
(700,000 kph). That’s fast enough to get from Philadelphia to Washington, D . C ., in one second.
The spacecraft will be in an elliptical orbit around the Sun at a 3.4-degree inclination from the
ecliptic plane.

fig:7.1 Probe Mission Operation

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 Data Path and Rate

Parker Solar Probe’s data will be downlinked via NASA’s Deep Space Network. Spacecraft health and
status telemetry is processed and archived at the APL Mission Operations Center, or MOC. Science
data is archived at the MOC and distributed to the instrument teams and general public via the Science
Gateway.
The maximum downlink rate from the spacecraft is 555 kilobits per second (kbps). Downlink time
varies by orbit phase.
During the cruise phase, the spacecraft will transmit health and status telemetry to the ground
three times per week.
During the solar encounter phase, the spacecraft talks to Earth three times per week by
transmitting a beacon tone which indicates spacecraft health and status.
During the science data downlink period, the spacecraft will transmit high-rate science data to the
ground on a daily basis, from 10 to 24 hours per day.

fig:8.1
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 TIMELINE

It has been nearly 60 years since the "Solar Probe" Concept was introduced.
Parker Solar Probe is a historic mission, flying into the Sun's atmosphere (or corona) for the
first time. Coming closer to the Sun than any previous spacecraft, Parker Solar Probe will
employ a combination of in situ measurements and imaging to achieve the mission's primary
scientific goal: to understand how the Sun's corona is heated and how the solar wind is
accelerated. Parker Solar Probe will revolutionize our knowledge of the origin and evolution of
the solar wind.
Mission duration: 6 yrs, 11 months

fig:10.1

On Oct. 3, 2017, Eugene N. Parker, professor emeritus at the University of Chicago, visited the spacecraft
that bears his name: NASA’s Parker Solar Probe. This is the first NASA mission named for a living
researcher and it's humanity’s first mission to explore the Sun up close.

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 2015
March: Critical Design Review (CDR)

2016
May: System Integration Review
July: KDP-D
July: Start of Integration and Testing

2017
Begin March 2017: Instrument Deliveries
Begin August 2017: Observatory System Testing
Fall 2017: Shipment of Observatory to GSFC

2018
Spring 2018: Shipment of Observatory to Cape Canaveral
August 12, 2018: Launch - 3:31 a.m. EDT (7:31 UTC)
October 3, 2018: Venus Flyby #1 - 4:44 a.m. EDT (8:44 UTC)
November 5, 2018: Perihelion #1 - 10:27 p.m. EST (Nov. 6, 2018 at 03:27
UTC)

2019
January 19, 2019: Aphelion #1
January 20, 2019: Second Orbit Begins
April 4, 2019: Perihelion #2
September 1, 2019: Perihelion #3
December 26, 2019: Venus Flyby #2

2020
January 29, 2020: Perihelion #4
June 7, 2020: Perihelion #5
July 11, 2020: Venus Flyby #3
September 27, 2020: Perihelion #6

2021
January 17, 2021: Perihelion #7
February 20, 2021: Venus Flyby #4
April 29, 2021: Perihelion #8
August 9, 2021: Perihelion #9
October 16, 2021: Venus Flyby #5
November 21, 2021: Perihelion #10

2022
February 25, 2022: Perihelion #11
June 1, 2022: Perihelion #12
September 6, 2022: Perihelion #13
December 11, 2022: Perihelion #14

2023
March 17, 2023: Perihelion #152015
March: Critical Design Review (CDR)

2024
March 30, 2024: Perihelion #19
June 30, 2024: Perihelion #20
September 30, 2024: Perihelion #21
November 6, 2024: Venus Flyby #7 Final Venus Flyby
December 24, 2024: Perihelion #22 First Close Approach

2025
March 22, 2025: Perihelion #23
June 19, 2025: Perihelion #24

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 Parker Solar Probe Mission Trajectory and Current Position

Venus

Earth

Mercury Parker
Solar Probe

Heliocentric Velocity (km/s): 26.04

Distance from Sun Center (AU): 0.611
Distance from Sun's Surface (RS): 130.4
Distance from Earth (AU): 1.011
Round-Trip Light Time (hh:mm:ss): 00:16:49
20 Oct 2023 16:00:00 UTC

Parker Solar Probe Distance from Sun

250

200
Distance from Sun's Surface (RS)

150

100

50

0
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500
Days from Launch

fig:12.1 -Parker Solar probe

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 fig:13.1

As Parker Solar Probe passed through the corona on encounter nine, the spacecraft flew by structures
called coronal streamers. These structures can be seen as bright features moving upward in the upper
images and angled downward in the lower row. Such a view is only possible because the spacecraft
flew above and below the streamers inside the corona. Until now, streamers have only been seen from
afar. They are visible from Earth during total solar eclipses.
Credits: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Naval Research Laboratory

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fig:14 Parker Solar Probe

As Parker Solar Probe ventures closer to the Sun, it’s crossing into uncharted regimes and making new
discoveries. This image represents Parker Solar Probe’s distances from the Sun for some of these
milestones and discoveries.
Credits: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Mary P. Hrybyk-Keith

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 Achievements

Boundary which marks the edge of the corona

fig:15.1

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Detection of cosmic dust

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 Sun magnetic field

Investigation in Coronal holes is in the process;

link of research paper:https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/acd2cf/pdf

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 CONCLUSION

The Parker Solar Probe is a groundbreaking mission that is expected to revolutionize our
understanding of the Sun.

Reference
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/parker-solar-probe/
http://parkersolarprobe.jhuapl.edu
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/parker-solar-probe/

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