ARLA/CLUSTER: Sonda Parker a caminho do Sol...

[João Costa > CT1FBF]

*NASA, ULA launch Parker Solar Probe on historic journey to touch Sun*

Hours before the rise of the very star it will study, NASA’s Parker Solar
Probe <http://nasa.gov/solarprobe> launched from Florida Sunday to begin
its journey to the Sun, where it will undertake a landmark mission. The
spacecraft will transmit its first science observations in December,
beginning a revolution in our understanding of the star that makes life on
Earth possible.

Roughly the size of a small car, the spacecraft lifted off at 3:31 a.m. EDT
on a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket from Space Launch
Complex-37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. At 5:33 a.m., the mission
operations manager reported that the spacecraft was healthy and operating
normally.

The mission’s findings will help researchers improve their forecasts of
space weather events, which have the potential to damage satellites and
harm astronauts on orbit, disrupt radio communications and, at their most
severe, overwhelm power grids.

“This mission truly marks humanity’s first visit to a star that will have
implications not just here on Earth, but how we better understand our
universe,� said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science
Mission Directorate. “We’ve accomplished something that decades ago, lived
solely in the realm of science fiction.�

During the first week of its journey, the spacecraft will deploy its
high-gain antenna and magnetometer boom
<https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/parker-solar-probe-magnetometer-boom-deployed>.
It also will perform the first of a two-part deployment of its electric
field antennas. Instrument testing will begin in early September and last
approximately four weeks, after which Parker Solar Probe can begin science
operations.

“Today’s launch was the culmination of six decades of scientific study and
millions of hours of effort,� said project manager Andy Driesman, of the
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel,
Maryland. “Now, Parker Solar Probe is operating normally and on its way to
begin a seven-year mission of extreme science.�

Over the next two months, Parker Solar Probe will fly towards Venus,
performing its first Venus gravity assist
<https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/basics/primer/> in early October – a maneuver
a bit like a handbrake turn – that whips the spacecraft around the planet,
using Venus’s gravity to trim the spacecraft’s orbit tighter around the
Sun. This first flyby will place Parker Solar Probe in position in early
November to fly as close as 15 million miles from the Sun – within the
blazing solar atmosphere, known as the corona – closer than anything made
by humanity has ever gone before.

Throughout its seven-year mission, Parker Solar Probe will make six more
Venus flybys and 24 total passes by the Sun, journeying steadily closer to
the Sun until it makes its closest approach at 3.8 million miles. At this
point, the probe will be moving at roughly 430,000 miles per hour, setting
the record for the fastest-moving object made by humanity.

Parker Solar Probe will set its sights on the corona to solve
long-standing, foundational mysteries of our Sun. What is the secret of the
scorching corona
<https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/nasa-s-parker-solar-probe-and-the-curious-case-of-the-hot-corona>,
which is more than 300 times hotter than the Sun’s surface, thousands of
miles below? What drives the supersonic solar wind
<https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/parker-solar-probe-and-the-birth-of-the-solar-wind>
 – the constant stream of solar material that blows through the entire
solar system? And finally, what accelerates solar energetic particles,
which can reach speeds up to more than half the speed of light as they
rocket away from the Sun?

Scientists have sought these answers for more than 60 years, but the
investigation requires sending a probe right through the unrelenting heat
of the corona. Today, this is finally possible with cutting-edge thermal
engineering advances
<https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/traveling-to-the-sun-why-won-t-parker-solar-probe-melt/>
 that can protect the mission on its daring journey.

“Exploring the Sun’s corona with a spacecraft has been one of the hardest
challenges for space exploration,� said Nicola Fox, project scientist at
APL. “We’re finally going to be able to answer questions about the corona
and solar wind raised by Gene Parker in 1958 – using a spacecraft that
bears his name – and I can’t wait to find out what discoveries we make. The
science will be remarkable.�

Parker Solar Probe carries four instrument suites designed to study
magnetic fields, plasma and energetic particles, and capture images of the
solar wind. The University of California, Berkeley, U.S. Naval Research
Laboratory in Washington, University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and
Princeton University in New Jersey lead these investigations.

Parker Solar Probe is part of NASA’s Living with a Star program to explore
aspects of the Sun-Earth system that directly affect life and society. The
Living with a Star program is managed by the agency’s Goddard Space Flight
Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in
Washington. APL designed and built, and operates the spacecraft.

The mission is named for Eugene Parker
<https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/eugene-newman-parker>, the physicist
who first theorized the existence of the solar wind in 1958. It’s the first
NASA mission to be named for a living researcher.
Renowned physicist Eugene Parker watches the launch of the spacecraft that
bears his name – NASA’s Parker Solar Probe – early in the morning on Aug.
12, 2018, from Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in
Florida. Credits: NASA/Glenn Benson

A plaque dedicating the mission to Parker was attached to the spacecraft in
May. It includes a quote from the renowned physicist – “Let’s see what lies
ahead.� It also holds a memory card containing more than 1.1 million names
submitted by the public to travel with the spacecraft to the Sun.

For more information on Parker Solar Probe, go to:
https://www.nasa.gov/solarprobe
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