May 9, 2024

Voyage to the Sun: NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Completes 16th Close Approach

NASAs Parker Solar Probe accomplished a milestone on June 27, 2023– its 16th orbit of the Sun. On August 21, 2023, Parker Solar Probe will swing past Venus for its sixth flyby of the planet. This flyby will be the sixth of seven planned flybys of Venus during Parkers primary mission.
Parker Solar Probe was established as part of NASAs Living With a Star program to check out aspects of the Sun-Earth system that directly affect life and society.

Parker Solar Probes 16th orbit consisted of a perihelion that brought the spacecraft within 5.3 million miles of the Sun. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Mike Yakovlev/Josh Diaz
” The burn performance was area on, which sets us up well for targeting our next Venus flyby,” said APLs Nick Pinkine, Parker Solar Probe objective operations supervisor, including that the spacecraft emerged from the maneuver and flyby healthy and running typically.
” Parker has actually currently taught us so much, enabling us to investigate the source of the solar wind and find more about the magnetic activity within the corona,” said Nour Raouafi, Parker Solar Probe task scientist at APL. “Were excited to see what else this mission has to reveal us as Parker gets even closer to a significantly more active Sun.”
On August 21, 2023, Parker Solar Probe will swing previous Venus for its sixth flyby of the planet. To prepare for a smooth course, the mission group at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) used a small trajectory correction maneuver on June 7, 2023, the very first course correction because March 2022. This flyby will be the sixth of 7 planned flybys of Venus during Parkers primary mission.
Parker uses Venus gravity to tighten its orbit around the Sun and set up a future perihelion at simply 4.5 million miles from the Suns surface. As the Sun ends up being progressively active, this perihelion will be specifically crucial to finding out more about heliophysics.
Parker Solar Probe was developed as part of NASAs Living With a Star program to check out aspects of the Sun-Earth system that directly impact life and society. The Living With a Star program is managed by the companys Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, for NASAs Science Mission Directorate in Washington. APL created, built, and operates the spacecraft and manages the objective for NASA.

NASAs Parker Solar Probe completed its 16th Sun orbit on June 27, 2023, coming within 5.3 million miles throughout its perihelion. Credit: Ben Smith/ Applied Physics Laboratory/ NASA
NASAs Parker Solar Probe achieved a milestone on June 27, 2023– its 16th orbit of the Sun. This included a close approach to the Sun (referred to as perihelion) on June 22, 2023, where the spacecraft came within 5.3 million miles of the solar surface while moving at 364,610 miles per hour. The spacecraft emerged from the solar flyby healthy and running usually.
NASAs Parker Solar Probe has completed its 16th science orbit, that included a close technique to the Sun (understood as perihelion) that brought it within simply 5.3 million miles of the solar surface area on June 22 while moving at 364,610 miles per hour.
The team will continue monitoring Parkers progress to figure out if any other such maneuvers will be necessary over the next numerous months as the spacecraft gets ready for this flyby, Guo added. The August flyby will be the sixth of 7 prepared for flybys of Venus, with Parker utilizing the worlds gravity to tighten its orbit around the Sun and set up a perihelion within 4.5 million miles from the Suns surface area.